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bra repair by shortening stretched-out band with a zigzag stitch

bra’s 2nd alteration

When my daughter comes home from uni, she always has a pile of clothes needing alterations. This is the second alteration/repair for my daughter’s favorite bra.

bra repaired two years ago

The first was 2 years ago. I shortened the band in the back. Folded the extra fabric and did a simple zigzag.

bra repair by shortening stretched-out band with a zigzag stitch

This time, The band was thread-bare. I had to make a new band. Here’s what I did.

I traced the band without cutting the old band off. (yes, that’s scrap paper)

I found some scrap spandex and cut out the new band with no seam allowance.

cutting out spandex to replace the bra band

The part of the bra that was receiving the most stress was the area from where the strap attaches to the bottom of the band. So I cut reinforcement from scrap broadcloth and sewed it to the top and bottom.  You can see that I serged the edges of the reinforcement.

woven reinforcement added to the area with the most wear

I sewed elastic around the top and bottom edges. (Sorry. I forgot to snap a pic of this step.) This is where I sewed on the elastic using a narrow zigzag stitch.

elastic zigzag stitched along the edges indicated

Sorry. I forgot to take pics of the rest of the steps.

I cut off the old fastening and sewed it onto a scrap of wide, non-roll elastic.

Sewed the fastener with non-roll elastic onto the band.

Zigzagged the new band around the cup edges with a thin zig-zag stitch.

Cut off the old band on the edge of that zigzag.

Attached the straps to the band using a wide zig-zag stitch.

My daughter loves it!

I’m amazed that after so much wear, the underwire has not poked through! My daughter says that’s what you get when you buy quality.  I agree.

Sorry I didn’t take pics of the end steps or the final result. Stay tuned for next time my daughter comes home from uni.

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2 Comments

    1. avatar
      krakenretro says:

      Since elastic can be tricky because of the streth, I didn’t want to use pins and risk breaking the needle or poking myself. I hand-basted using matching thread and did a ver narrow zigzag. I did the mathing basting thread so it wouldn’t show since it would be impossible to pull out the basting after zigzagging.

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