Making Undies

Lately I've been making ladies underwear.  One of the things I wanted to do for gifts for my girls was to dig out an old pattern I have and make them some pretty panties.  While I already had plenty of elastic, lace and pretty embellishments to make them I didn't have any fabric.  My girls wear cotton so I decide to look at the fabric stores for some fun knits.  Unfortunately the selection was poor and the price surprisingly high.  So I waited and I thought about it.  Then I got an idea!

Last spring I used a 20% OFF coupon at JoAnn Fabrics and picked up half a dozen XXL 100% cotton T-shirts that were on sale for $2.50 each.  I bought the biggest ones they had so I'd get the most fabric.  The coupon shaved an extra quarter off of the price so on six shirts I saved an extra $1.50!  Not a bad haul given the current price of ladies underwear.

The pattern I have is made by Stretch & Sew and is one I used waaaaay back in the eighties when I was broke.  I had borrowed it from my mom who at one time had worked for Stretch & Sew as an instructor.  Needless to say, she has a ton of patterns.  Several years ago I had mentioned that pattern to her and told her I was going to look on eBay to see if I could find one.  She ended up giving me the pattern back and told me I could keep it.  And it sat there.  Until recently.

A couple weeks ago I washed all of those T-shirts in warm water to remove the sizing and shrink them up if that is what they might do.  Then I dug out that pattern and used a piece of tissue wrap to trace the three pattern pieces.  I used one of my kids washable markers.  That worked well and no bleed through.  I cut out the pieces and then pinned them to the T -shirts and cut out six pair.  The instructions are really easy to follow and making them is far simpler than one might think.  And it is a lot of fun.

They are coming along quite nicely and I think they are every bit as nice as store bought.  Possibly even better quality.  Once these are done I might even make a couple pair for myself.  I need to find out where to buy tricot (nylon) online as JoAnn's doesn't carry it anymore.  I think I have a couple of leads but if anyone knows where to go please share that in the comments.

I know Stretch & Sew and I believe Kwik Sew made these multi size traceable patterns back in the day.  They also made patterns for men's and boy's underwear and I've made those before as well.  If you think you might be interested in making some for yourself or your family I'd encourage you to find a pattern on eBay or maybe even Etsy.  I think they are a great value.