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An olive lingerie set

This is almost a duplicate of the fuchsia mesh lingerie set I posted yesterday, but this time using the remains of an olive green kit I’d bought from New Craft House when I made their Wren bra a few years ago. Because I’d bought a bra kit and a panty kit, I ended up with a lot of mesh leftover, but not much in the way of elastics.

NCH don’t offer the kits anymore, but they do have a lot of the various olive notions, so I did the smart thing of sorting through my lingerie sewing drawer before ordering. As it turned out, I already had a hook closure, rings and sliders, and a ton of the mesh, so I just needed to buy more FOE, strap elastic, and under bust elastic.

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A fuchsia lingerie set

Once a year or so, I go all-in on lingerie sewing for a bit. More often than not, it tends to be when it’s cold out and I’m sick of sewing sweaters and warm layers. Many times it happens in January, but it seems my sewing proclivities are earlier than usual this year, because I’ve just sewn an absolute lingerie explosion. This is just the first of four posts!

It doesn’t hurt that none of my nice, pre-Long Covid lingerie really fits anymore, and I’m sick of wallowing in Axis Tanks and bog standard comfy underwear day in and day out… So I thought I’d celebrate losing half of the weight I’d gained during Long Covid by sewing up a few nice sets for myself.

The fuchsia bra

I’d made the New Craft House Wren Bra twice a few years ago, both times using the kits of mesh & elastic that NCH sold.

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A leopard print sling bag

As I’ve started to cycle around London on our friend’s borrowed e-bike, I’ve noticed a problem that I could fix with sewing. Both the borrowed bike and mine (on order) use a Swytch conversion kit, which means the battery can’t be locked to the bike and therefore must be carried with you when you reach your destination. It’s not particularly big or heavy, but it’s bigger than my waist packs, which meant I had to wear a big backpack everywhere, even if there wasn’t really anything in it except the battery!

So I went on the lookout for a bag pattern that was big enough to hold the battery, but is smaller than a backpack, and found the Noodlehead Sandhill Sling bag. I’ve not sewn any Noodlehead patterns before, but I’ve heard good things, and I see why now! It’s a great little pattern and definitely fills a void in pattern offerings.

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A Skeleton Tuuli dress

I made a Tuuli dress made out of jersey with tiny bats right after I got sick in 2023 and I loved that dress SO MUCH but I hardly got to wear it at all before I gained too much weight from being long covid bedbound.

That bat fabric was the Art Gallery Fabrics 2023 Halloween print so there’s no way I could get more, but I was able to get their 2025 Halloween print – the same super soft cotton elastane jersey but with little skeletons all over! It’s called “Mister No Body” and I bought mine from Goldstitch for £35.00 total for the 2.5m (now out of stock, but do some googling as other retailers seem to have it).

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A test Denver lips bra

I bought the new FibreMood “Sports” special issue and there’s quite a bit in it that I want to make, but I thought I’d start off with something simple that I don’t have to buy special fabric for. “Denver” isn’t really a sports bra – there’s zero support there – not even a lining! – just one layer of lycra. It’s called “cropped top” in the magazine and I’d agree with that.

I need an extremely basic sports bra for low impact stretching, walking, and e-biking, so my favourite supportive Jalie Coco pattern seemed like overkill here. I figured Denver would be something quick that’s better than just wearing a cotton Axis tank, and I could use up a bit more of my Lycra scraps drawer in the process.

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A looming head Lara sweatshirt

I’ll be honest – I sewed this sweatshirt mostly as a vessel for a bit of heat transfer vinyl I cut out way too big back in the summer. I wasn’t really thinking of the measurements on a shirt when I cut it out, and was more thinking to just make it as big as the vinyl roll, forgetting that my roll was nearly 24 inches wide instead of A4! So I ended up with a Lestat head (same as on this grey shirt), but absolutely huge – way too big to put on the front of a teeshirt. But I didn’t want to throw it away either, so I figured it’d go nicely on the back instead.

I’ve been meaning to sew the FibreMood Lara sweatshirt for a while now. It’s from the fabulous FibreMood “Essentials” magazine that I’ve sewn so much from already! It’s an oversized sweatshirt with great sleeve seaming, and the option to either sew the fronts and backs as one piece each, or each with princess seaming and a kangaroo pocket. I chose to have the princess seams and kangaroo pocket in the front, but no seaming in the back (so that no seams would interfere with the big vinyl). I selected Size XL based on my bust measurement, but tbh it’s so oversized I could’ve easily gone down a size or two and still been fine.

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My Lestat tribute outfit – By Night

Even though I’ve shown you daylight details of the blouse, the pleather trousers, and the bondage necklace I made in tribute to the Lestatc looks seen in the teasers for the upcoming The Vampire Lestat show, I really wanted to do some fun, styled nighttime photos too!

A friend and I did a night shoot when I sewed a full Wolfkiller cloak last fall, and it was so much fun! Plus I ended up loving the night photos even more than the day ones, and it made me wish I’d done a night shoot for the Claudia tribute outfit I sewed in 2023 (maybe I will when I can fit back into it again!)

So my friend Ann and I did my hair and makeup (complete with blue contact lenses and gold hair spray you can barely see!) and traipsed around the neighbourhood one evening…

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Rockstar Lestat pleather trousers

Following on from my Lestat lawyer blouse, you may have noticed the pleather trousers I wore with it… well these are another homage to Lestat in his rockstar phase in season 3 of Interview with the Vampire (now titled “The Vampire Lestat”, out next year).

I needed something to wear with the lawyer blouse for Halloween, but he’s sitting at a table in the footage so you can’t see what trousers he’s wearing. So I took artistic liberty and decided to sew some tight red trousers similar to ones seen on set and in the press photos.