Thread: Covering a Bra: A Photo Tutorial

Hi Everyone,

I recently posted this on tribe and figured I'd repost here. I had a student ask me about covering a bra to create a base for a costume and I decided to make a tutorial for her. I know there are a *lot* of great resources online in terms of articles for doing this, but I hadn't seen a step-by-step photographic tutorial on it yet. I added this one in my FLICKR account (and hope to add more tutorials soon!). Hope you all enjoy - hopefully this might help someone out who's "stuck" on their work:

Covering a Bra

ps - please forgive the odd colorings - for some reason the coloring in the house that day was very amber-toned

That is a great costume!!! Nice work!

Oh, those are great instructions! I had always cut fabric triangles with rounded bottom edges to cover my bra cups, but I'd never thought of using circles and rectangles. I think I'll try it that way next time. Thanks for sharing!

Regards
Priscilla

This is awesome. Thanks!

great! thanks!

Wow great work !!!!
Do you mind if I use the photos into the theory lesson I give on costuming, on how they can make a bra? ofcourse giving Credit to you? and I can post photos also from the afternoon?

Maria Aya, Greece,r:;

Misha, nice costume and I love how it's a step by step tutorial that incorporates design elements at the same time. The fabric is lovely, how about adding a picture in the end with you wearing the costume?

I have always been afraid to try to cover a bra, you have inspired me to give it a go. The finished bra looks lovely.

Originally Posted by MariaAya

Wow great work !!!!
Do you mind if I use the photos into the theory lesson I give on costuming, on how they can make a bra? ofcourse giving Credit to you? and I can post photos also from the afternoon?

Maria Aya, Greece,r:;

Absolutely! You're more than welcome to use it. All I ask is that you give credit and since you've said you will then that works! I hope they work well for you!

Originally Posted by mekyria

Misha, nice costume and I love how it's a step by step tutorial taht incorporates design elements at the same time. The fabric is lovely, how about adding a picture in the ned with you wearing the costume?

Thank you! And I definitely will add photos of me in it to the set (and probably post the result in the "what have you been makin' thread") as soon as I get some! Hopefully it will make it's debut this weekend at our local ren faire. I know it's not medieval at all, but I still want to give it a test run. Hopefully I'll remember to take photos!

great tutorial! thanks for posting... I sent it to a few friends that are always asking questions, haha.

OOO! I wish I had this tutorial about a year ago! I totally McGyvered a bra cover and it looks, well, McGyvered.

haha... my first bra...I did NO hand stitching. MAN...that thing was funky...but you can cover a lot up with some embellishment

thanks for posting this,
I found it to be helpful and inspiring. I am going to attempt making my own. :)

I'm so glad everyone is enjoying it! I'm getting ready to cover another bra and may do different side strap things so if I do I'll try to remember to photo it and post it too. :)

Thank *you* all for your nice compliments!

Hi Misha,

Thank you so much for all of this info!

Just to make sure i understand...it's early and no coffee...when you pin the circle to the bra cup, you fold the bottom edge under itself and pin to the bra, NOT fold it under the bra to wrap the bottom edge?

Thanks again for the tutorial!!!

..l;,

Originally Posted by jengal55

Hi Misha,

Thank you so much for all of this info!

Just to make sure i understand...it's early and no coffee...when you pin the circle to the bra cup, you fold the bottom edge under itself and pin to the bra, NOT fold it under the bra to wrap the bottom edge?

Thanks again for the tutorial!!!

..l;,

You can do it either way ,r:; In the bra I created for the tutorial, I folded the edges under instead of wrapping them as they were brocade and I didn't want them to ravel. I typically don't fold them under because I don't want bulky fabric under my bra, but you could definitely do it that way if you wanted to.

That is super! I have your page bookmarked. I always wondered how to make the "dart" in the middle of the bra cups. It's much easier than I thought!

Thank you so much for posting this! I have one quick question though. You mentioned using a bra that is slightly larger than what you would normally wear. Did you mean cup size or band size or both? I'm pretty busty so my bra options will decrease if I have to go up another cup size. Thanks!

Misha,
This is really helpful. I have a question--approximately how many hours did this take you to do? I'm very new to sewing, so it helps me to know how long these projects take for someone with more experience. I'm sure it will take me longer, but that gives me an idea of how to budget my time.

Originally Posted by jaded

Thank you so much for posting this! I have one quick question though. You mentioned using a bra that is slightly larger than what you would normally wear. Did you mean cup size or band size or both? I'm pretty busty so my bra options will decrease if I have to go up another cup size. Thanks!

I'm a 34 D and I either do a 36 D or a 38 C. Sometimes I can get away with a 36 C. I'd say if you were a 34 B to go up to 34 C or 36 B. Either should work. You want to go a bit bigger in cup size so that, when you stretch fabric over it and add lots of decorations, any shrinkage in the bra cup won't matter. Sometimes when you stretch your fabric over it this will cause the cup to sort of collapse and it can be hard to fit back in. ..cr.:

I'd suggest seeing what *you* like. Try a bigger cup, but don't go too big. I usually don't do DD because the cups are just way to huge for me.

Originally Posted by rachelw

Misha,
This is really helpful. I have a question--approximately how many hours did this take you to do? I'm very new to sewing, so it helps me to know how long these projects take for someone with more experience. I'm sure it will take me longer, but that gives me an idea of how to budget my time.

I think my very first one, just to cover it, took a few nights. As you go along, of course, you'll get better with practice. Now it takes me maybe 2-3 hours depending upon the fabric I'm using. If I'm going super fast, and don't hand stitch the strap coverings (sometimes I'll cheat and use a machine to cover - it depends on whether I want stitches to show). I'd say budget 2-4 nights to start, 1-2 for covering and 1-2 for decoration. Good luck!

Originally Posted by rachelw

Misha,
This is really helpful. I have a question--approximately how many hours did this take you to do? I'm very new to sewing, so it helps me to know how long these projects take for someone with more experience. I'm sure it will take me longer, but that gives me an idea of how to budget my time.

I just covered my very first bra and it took me an evening to get everything the way that I wanted it. I did hand stitch all of it because I am crap on the machine tho. I only used the machine to create the new back strap because that won't show. I am very new to sewing more than a hole in a sock so it probley took me longer than someone who knows how to use their machine to the best advantage.

The all outfit is so beautiful i love it... will try to make me one... :0)

I'm glad you liked it! Unfortunately, I didn't get too many good photos of the costume with me in it but i'll try to get some uploaded soon. here's the "full" costume:

and here's me in it (partially at least!):

This is such an amazing tutorial, I'm bumping it up for us newbies.

This is awesome! You should put this in a Power Point slide show with the captions and descriptions.

Misha, this is a wonderful tutorial! I'm going to post a link from my site, if that's OK.

Originally Posted by SummerSahar

OOO! I wish I had this tutorial about a year ago! I totally McGyvered a bra cover and it looks, well, McGyvered.

Did you use duct tape? ..l;,

Bwahahahaha!

Great tutorial and thanks very much for your documentation. I love that you call your embellishment "crap" ... sometimes I feel very cheesy buying all my "crap," lol

That's a great tutorial - I like your use of Flickr. And the costume turned out beautifully.

In case anyone's interested in a how-to for covering a bra using stretch material (in which you can keep the original shoulder and back straps), I've written a similar article here: Jewel Bellydance - Belly dance classes melbourne Australia ::: Articles. My bodgy photos are not nearly so clear as Misha's!