Foundation building with the Euler Bralette & Jalie 3242

Ok, so I had this great idea to make myself the Euler Bralette from Sophie Hines. A soft around the house bra was the goal and if it worked out well maybe, just maybe I could use the pattern to help make my first handmade swimsuit for this summer.

Gathering all the right materials from different sources was kind of a pain and I made some wrong purchases in the process. The smartest move I made was picking up a bra strapping kit from Simply By Ti when ordering my fabrics. The kit includes the strapping, rings, and sliders all sized to work together. I might recommend buying a bra kit for your first attempt so you have an idea what to look for in future bra supply shopping.

The construction of the Euler was pretty easy and I appreciated that I didn’t necessarily have to complete the bra in it’s entirety before knowing how it was going to fit. You can baste the side cups to the side elastic to make sure there’s no gaping. You can also baste the cups to the underband and the straps to the band at the back to check the positioning and strap length.

The Euler is constructed to hide all the seams and raw edges and gives instructions for adding trims and details. You’ll want to read through the instructions first, as the instructions to add trimmings come after the standard instuctions to complete a step.

I made the cobalt & black cotton lycra version first to match up with a pair of Jalie undies I made last year. I used the bra strapping from my Simply By Ti kit for the straps and along the sides of the cups. The firmness is just right for the straps but a little too firm for the sides. For the underbust elastic I ended up using Dritz 1.5in soft waistband elastic. The softness is nice but it is not quite firm enough as there is a little bit of buckling at center front.

Where I struggled with the Euler was in the sizing. The size chart is based on bust measurement- no cup sizing like some bras- putting me in a size medium. The medium fits ok for my cup size, but I would like a little more coverage. The cutting chart for the elastics was very off for me. I had to cut my straps down 3in and still had extra length to work with. The underbust elastic needed to be shortened 3in at center back, and I used about 1in shorter elastic at the side cup than instructed. The lesson here is to measure it out on you before cutting so it fits your body’s unique shape or be prepared to waste a little on the first try.

In my second attempt (the grey & black) I used the medium size again but widened the neckline edge out to the xxlarge cutting line to give me a little more coverage. Good idea right? Well only sort of. When I did this I also ended up making the side edge longer and shifting the strap placement toward my center front and that makes it fit a little weird. Totally my mistake. I hope this pic illustrates the problems I created for myself.

In the grey version I used Dritz 1.5in ribbed nonroll elastic for the underbust and followed the pattern instructions to make a self fabric covering. This nonroll elastic is just right. It’s a good width and is just firm enough to support the bra and feel comfortable. I used a picot trim in the neckline seam and at the cup sides too.

Going forward I think what I need to do is reshape the neckline edge of the size medium to give me more coverage so I can keep the good strap placement and proper length at the side.

In the end I got what I was after, soft lounging bras and I do think this will work for a swim top if I can find the right type of swim elasics to use. (In the pic below I filled out the right side to give an idea of what it looks like on.)

The Pattern The Euler Bralette is from designer Sophie Hines. The Cobalt version is a size medium based on my bust measurement and altered as described above The grey is a med/xxlarge as described above. Underwear are Jalie 3242 womens bikini w/ my own colorblocking.

The Fabric Cobalt, black, and grey cotton lycra jersey and bra strapping kit from Simply By Ti** I made the cobalt/black pair of Jalie underwear about eight months ago out of Simply By Ti’s cotton/lycra, so I am confident the fabric is going to work well for these underwear sets and hold up well over time.

As always, thanks for reading today.

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**As a Simply by Ti Ambassador I receive complementary fabric from the Simply By Ti shop to use for a project in exchange for sharing it with you.