Miyu's first shell top! Pic-heavy/Mini-tutorial

[Miyu]

So after a whole of surfing the forums and learning stuff while completing a few commissions, I finally have a bit of free time, and I'm spending it first making my mermaid bra!I'm making this on an uber-tight budget, with things from around the house ONLY. The bra is an old Victoria's Secret of mine that I'm too small for, but will work perfectly for my needs. My main shells are the remnants of a meal at Joe's Crab Shack I am making a criss-cross (bellydance) style top, to fully support my "ladies" and to look less like a giant pink bra.

STEP ONE: GATHERING SUPPLIES



Upcycled produce netting because I am broke, but the netting comes for free with food on food stamps :P



Lots of fake jewels I found at my house, I picked out the ones I liked.



Shells, glass pearls, mother-of-pearl beads, seed beads, etc.



These aren't all the supplies I'm using, but it's all the pretty parts!

[Miyu]

STEP TWO: DISSECTING THE BRA

First, remove shoulder straps from cups with a seam ripper, picking out stitches. Don't totally murder this part!



See? No more straps!



So now the kind of tricky part, the side panels! as the following illustrates, you don't want to cut your side panel off flush with your bra - you could ruin the bra, or at least have no good strong seams to sew to.



Like this...



And it looks like this halfway through a side panel:



Ta da! Just a cup base!



Next step, making the new strap-loops for the criss-cross back!

[Arella]

It's looking like it's gonna turn out well

[Mermaid Julz]

Can't wait to see how this turns out

[Ashton]

Snazzy looking!

[Mermaid Annariea]

i love stuff like this

[Mermaid Caspiana]

Ooo... Can't wait to see this! I'm just finishing mine!

[Miyu]

Alright, I'm done sewing on the ribcage straps! (Not the shoulder straps, but I bet I can finish those tomorrow )

As you can see below, I have cut two 4" lengths of ribbon, and two 8" lengths of ribbon. I also have a lighter to seal the ends of my synthetic-fiber ribbon to keep it from fraying.


After holding the strapless bra to yourself and pinning the ribbons in place, sew them down like so:


You fold each ribbon in half (4" becomes 2", 8" becomes 4") and sandwich the seam we left on the bra. The bottom (longer) strap was harder for me to place, so for the second side I just folded my bra in half and lined it up with the one I had spent 10 minutes trying to pin in place in the mirror:


Trim and seal the edges of the bottom straps where it meets the angle:


As you can see, I sewed three lines: one behind the seam "bump", one in the middle of it, and one on the other side to sandwich the ribbon loop around the bra material.

[Mermaid Julz]

coming along good! Keep it up...

[Miyu]

Haha thanks! Hard part's done now - those ribcage straps have to be placed just right to not be stupid :P

Shoulder straps are easy, then comes the fun part

[Ashton]

looking good!

[emma11]

This is an AWESOME tutorial! Can't wait to see what you do with it!

[WillowAnne]

I never thought of using produce netting! You just blew my mind. Are you going to paint it somehow? Its looking great!

[Mermaid Danielle]

Looks like it is coming along nicely!

[Miyu]

Thank you guys so much, it's my first tutorial! But I noticed there's not a whole lot of tutorials on this kind of bra, so when I decided to make mine like this, I figured I'd show how it's done

I won't be painting the netting, I'm just going to use it in whatever colour it comes in.

One of the reasons I'm using produce netting is because my focus as a mermaid is to help people to keep trash out of the oceans by making things from other things, instead of throwing it away

THERE WILL BE A VIDEO, when I'm done with big stages, since all I'm filming are little clips I have to smush them together.

[Ariadne]

This is great! Can't wait to see what you create!

[Miyu]

HOLY CARP YOU GUYS, I just finished sewing the shoulder straps on, so I cut a couple of pieces of scrap yarn and laced it up to try it on... I AM IN LOVE HERE. It fits great and contains my "ladies" so totally much better than any bra or swim top I've ever tried on. It also shows off the tattoo on my chest very nicely. My shell necklace that I wear daily sits right inbetween the cups It shifts and moves and is totally the most dance/performance-worthy top I've ever found for someone with... well, anime boobs. Any other bra/swim top I've tried, I am constantly readjusting. Now I need to make more of these to wear every day, LOL! It even helps me correct my posture

I decided to use some little brass rings from a thrifted belt on the end of the short shoulder straps... Instead of making each shoulder strap long enough to lace-up through the other straps, I wanted that to be interchangeable, to get different effects/prevent having to replace that strap all the time. I didn't put brass rings on the ribcage loops/straps because I know for a fact they'll irritate my skin and give me an allergic reaction there. On my back they move around more on less-sensitive skin, so I'm less worried about a reaction there.

Pics coming tomorrow, and hopefully I can put together my video clips, since that's pretty much the end of the tutorial for the conversion of a regular bra to a cross-back bra, since now all I have to do is decorate (which I am looking forward to, but is a daunting task)!

[Mermaid Oshun]

what about the adornment, all the shells and whatnot? I actually dont think you even needed to replace the pink strap for those 2 black elastic bands from an aesthetic perspective. Just remove the shoulder strap or use a strapless bra to start. Glad it feels sturdier though

[Miyu]

I'll be getting to decorating later today, after the sun comes up and I take some pics of the straps before I start covering everything. I'm so excited! I'll be sewing it all down and gluing it and such, and taking more pics and video, but I consider that more of a progress update than a tutorial, haha! The basic part of the tutorial is the straps/loops hookup, which is really what I wanted to show because there aren't many tutorials for that type of bra online.

The pink straps, sadly, had to be removed They shall be used for another project! But they were super-skinny elastic, and I am, shall we say, well-endowed for someone of my stature, and gravity + anatomy ended up stretching those poor straps down so far that what was supposed to be a push-up bra was not even supportive at all... Also, now I don't get the problem of bra straps falling down my shoulders, score! And also I love the lace-up look of the back, and I can make different looks by using different ribbons. The whole criss-cross thing also means it'll still fit me no matter what my weight fluctuates to (I've been yo-yoing constantly for years, now I'm pretty sure gluten and corn are the culprits). Thankfully, the new straps are a brown grosgrain ribbon, nice and not-stretchy, so everything's actually supportive. It does kind of look like black elastic in those photos! The lighting in/around my house can be so bad sometimes XD I don't have a "rainforest" setting on my camera, so a lot of my photos are off-colour.

I'm thinking of tacking in a "liner" after decorating, in much the same way as you would for a belly dance bra. This is both so I can sew through all the layers of the bra, then hide the stitches; but also so I can un-tack the liner to wash the bra easier when it starts to get dirty.

I have also determined that I need to get a "real" bra from somewhere more expensive than Victoria's Secret because apparently I am not a very well-catered to size/shape/whatever, I don't think girls designed this bra in the first place. Either that or I just need to wear modified bras all the time, this thing lifts and separates like no other LMAO!

[Miyu]

Alrighty folks, here's the photos of my finished bra base! I'm not used to taking pics in just a bra yet, so forgive if I don't know how to pose flatteringly... This is more to show what the bra is like anyways :P

Here's how it looks flat - I will probably sew the shoulder strap "loop" shut as I decorate it so the little up-cycled brass ring stays in place, not that it moves around, but just to get a finished look because I'm picky haha!



I just strung some scrap yarn through to show the mechanics of this get-up.





And the front - I love how it has that wonderful "belly dance"-style frame going on there...