Well, here's my underwear.

The other day I spent a couple hours making undies. I wasn't sure why I was doing it because it's not cost effective (fabric + elastic trim + about an hour of time per pair), and I wasn't even really using any amazingly unique fabrics. This would be more worth it had I used some super cool fabric, but that would have required going out and getting more things, which would have made it even less worth it...

For the most part, I wanted to do this because I kept seeing cute elastic trim at my local fabric store. A couple months ago I bought a few yards in like four different colors, and so here we are.

I used a combination of two tutorials. Mostly this one, for the pattern and construction order, but also this one for the method of trim attachment.

So, as the first tutorial states, I used an old pair of panties to make a pattern. (I'd show you what the originals looked like, but they are super worn out and I'm not going to do that.) The longer, thinner piece is the front with an attached crotch and the other is the back. I'm not sure what the benefit is of cutting the crotch and front as two separate pieces the way a lot of commercially produced panties do it, so I didn't cut them separately.

Here's what the pieces look like cut out:

For the crotch lining, I just used the bottom of the front pattern piece.

These pink ones were the first pair I made and had to re-do like three times because I kept mixing up the right/wrong sides of the fabric. The tutorial is very clear about how to arrange them, but somehow my brain just wasn't doing it.

As you can see, I cut each of them a little differently, mostly changing the width of the sides.  On the tie-dyed pair, I accidentally flipped the pattern for the back so the wrong side was on the fold (turning the crotch into the side seam). This made the crotch narrower, but apparently the pieces are symmetrical enough for it to still fit. Yay. I was afraid I had ruined everything and wouldn't even be able to recut it because there wasn't enough tie-dyed fabric (a shirt actually) to cut the piece again.

So, even though it doesn't feel like making these was worth it, they were kind of fun to put together. It's a pretty instant gratification project, which is nice to have once in a while.