While this lovely, coral lace fabric would look very pretty in an underwire bra pattern, I decided instead to contrast it's prettiness with a more sporty style bralette. This is the free Barrett bralette pattern by Madalynne.
My version: I chose to line the bralette with a dark beige stretch mesh in order to preserve the stretch of the coral lace and maintain the see-through look.
This bra pattern was a very quick sew with easy to follow instructions - a little too quick in fact as I zoomed through to the finish line without checking to see if it would fit me! Turns out it's too big in the band by about 4cm, which I could have easily fixed during sewing but now the bralette is finished it would be pretty much impossible, unless I want to do a lot of unpicking.
The kit comes with tonal beige and peach elastics and I love these soft colour hues together.
Since the bra pattern is a free download I thought it would be fun to match it to another free pattern - the Acacia Underwear by Megan Nielsen. This pattern is for hipster briefs and I was curious to see how the shaping around the back bottom piece would look when worn. I think it gives the briefs some nice bum coverage.
This cotton lycra in coral is a great fabric to make briefs from and the colour matches really well with the coral stretch lace.
I cut the front pattern piece from both the cotton lycra and the coral lace and hand basted them together to form a single layer. This made it much easier to work with when applying the elastic.
I used picot elastic in peach to finish the leg openings and for more of a sportswear look I used peach fold over elastic around the waist opening. If you are a little nervous about sewing fold over elastic (FOE) then have a look at this video by Evie la Luve. Hannah is an expert at applying FOE and has an easy to follow tutorial explaining her method of application.
While it is a shame that this lovely set doesn't fit me; it doesn't mean it will languish in the sample pile. You know that friend I mentioned here? The one who only wears either black or white sports bras? Well she just happens to be 4cm wider in the rib cage than I am (all that muscle definition from Yoga!) so she now has a lovely peach set to brighten up her underwear drawer.
So the generosity of Madalynne and Megan in offering up free patterns has meant that I can make a lovely lingerie set to gift to my friend.