 The Getty Strap tops and dresses are so comfortable to wear during the hot and humid summer months, but they certainly present a little bit of a problem when it comes to coverage and support for the ladies. I absolutely loathe strapless bras. I've literally never been able to find one that I actually thought was comfortable. No matter if it's bandeau or underwire or whatever it is, they're all terrible in my opinion. So I started adding shelf bras to all of my skinny strapped garments. And in today's video, I'm going to show you just how easy it is to do. It's going to blow your mind and you're going to be wondering, why have I not been doing this sooner? Before we jump into it though, please make sure that you are subscribed, especially if you like quick and easy tutorials. I love posting pattern hacks and showing you guys how to easier, more efficient and just have better results in the end. If you're new here, I'm Lindsay. Hello, welcome. I sew all my clothes and often find myself doing little pattern hacks like this one to make sure the clothes I wear fit into my lifestyle and are comfortable. This made for mermaids, a Lana dress that I'm going to be using to illustrate the shelf bra tutorial today is no exception. It's a super, super cute dress design, really simple, really easy, great for a beginner, but I knew I would need to add the shelf bra for the extra coverage I need and just a little bit of support. So let's get into it. To get started, you are going to need the pattern of your choice. Obviously, I'm going to be specifically using the made for mermaids, a Lana dress today, but if you have any pattern that has spaghetti straps, you should be able to apply this technique to it. In addition to your pattern pieces, you'll need obviously the front and the back, and you'll also need a few measurements. So I'm illustrating this today on my ditto form. This is like an exact replica of my body, but you could obviously easily take these measurements on your own body yourself. The first one you need is your width measurement right at your under bust. So this is where the band of your bra would normally sit. So it's usually right underneath your bust. But if you want it to be a little bit lower and kind of have a long line situation, you can definitely do that too. Just measure wherever you want your shelf bra to end. Right. And then we also need to measure from our waist, the length from our waist to wherever you want that shelf bra to end. It's going to be just a few inches probably, but this is going to help us determine the length of our shelf bra as well. So we have the length and the width that we will be applying to the pattern pieces. So grab those pattern pieces, get the measurements, get some tracing paper and a pencil, and let's head over to the cutting table where I can walk you through this tutorial. Do you guys like doing little drafting projects like this? They always make me feel like more legit of a psoas for some reason. I don't know why, but let me know in the comments are drafting projects like your thing, or do they kind of scare you a little bit? All right. So first things first, we need to draft the pattern piece for our bra. All we're going to do is lay some tracing paper right over top the front pattern piece of the dress and or the top and the back pattern piece. You're going to copy the fold line. You're going to copy the neckline. You can see that I put in the high v in the low v and then I also added a high scoop. Just added in myself and you're also going to copy this arm side exactly how it is. Now when it comes to the side seams, we actually want our bra to fit closer than the top does. The top is kind of loose once you get down to the waist. And we obviously want our bra to be a little bit more close fitting. So I came in pretty significantly. This is about an inch, inch and a half. So when I cut out my bra pattern piece, I'm actually going to follow this line here. When I cut out the dress, I'm going to follow this line here. The waist is marked on the pattern. I have my marked right here and then I just measured up from that and that's where my bra band is. You're going to copy the front pattern piece and the back pattern piece and then you're going to cut that out of fabric. Now it's on this particular pattern. It does not matter what the fabric looks like. I could have used any scrap I wanted because we're going to finish these necklines and arm sides with bias binding. So you're never going to run the risk of this showing. I happen to have a little bit of extra fabric from my self fabric. So that's what I used. So use yourself fabric or use something that you would like to find in a shelf bra. 100% cotton is nice and breathable. Cotton jersey would be really good or some kind of lining that you would find in sports bras or undergarments. That would all work as well. If you want to add a little bit more support to this, you can add the power mesh to that, no problem. You can also add cups to this and we will get to that whenever we get close to finishing the garments. So we're going to kind of go rogue from the instructions for just a little bit because we're going to assemble the shelf bra right sides together. You're going to sew your side seams and then on our dress, we're also going to go ahead and sew the side seams on our dress as well. You may go ahead and finish the hem on your dress. If you're doing the slits, go ahead and do the slits on your dress. Basically, we're doing everything except for the neckline and arm size. All right, so I have the side seams of my little bra shelf bra sewn here. I have pressed up my seam allowances, 5 eighths of an inch. Then I measured my leg where my bra band will go. I measured the elastic for that and, you know, got a nice little fit on that. Sewed that closed, marked the quarter ways on the quarter marks on the bra. So I've got center front, center back and my two side seams and then it is the same thing on the elastic. I marked the quarter points of the elastic. So you can see, obviously, that the elastic is smaller than the top and that's what we want. So we're going to go to our machine and we're going to sew this down using a zigzag stitch. You're just going to zigzag all along, carefully pulling the elastic ever so slightly and keeping it kind of in that fold that you made. Then when you're done with that, this gets turned up and top stitched and you will have a beautiful little finished band for your bra. Obviously feel free to make this elastic wider or narrower depending on, you know, how much support you want. Okay, so by now you should have your bra let side seams sewn. You should have your little band completely finished with the elastic inside. I like to do wrong sides together. So I'm going to actually slip the dress inside the bra and start pinning this together all around the necklines and arm size and then I'm going to go to the sewing machine and just baste these raw edges together just like that. You have your dress with your little shelf bra sewn in. It should be separate from the side seams at the at the hem but attached at where the strapping is going to go. So at this point you'll pick up on the pattern instructions for sewing on all of your bias binding and then if you want to add bra cups, once you have your straps put on, then try on the dress, put in the bra cups, pin them in and sew around the bra cups to the bra, not to the dress itself, obviously. And it's as easy as that. I really hope that you guys will give this little pattern hack a try. It will transform your wardrobe and kind of open your mind to patterns that you might have been writing off because you know like, oh I could never wear a bra with that. Well now you can add a shelf bra to it super easy and be able to wear clothes that you might have thought that you couldn't before. If you want some more tips and tricks that I have for just sewing in general, be sure to download my free Ultimate Garment Sewing Guide of Guides. I've linked it for you in the description box. It has seven different guides all in one, covers everything from fabric choices, garment ease, machine needles and a bunch of other stuff. And give this video a like if you found it to be helpful. If you want to know more about sewing with knits, I've linked one of my knit sew alongs to this end screen. It's actually the dress that I'm wearing today. It has lots of information in there that will help you out in learning to sew with knits and feeling a little bit more confident about that. But that is going to do it for me today y'all. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you all very soon. Bye.