For years, my mom has been my chief panty-provider, mainly because they fit (one of the main reasons that I sew, as you know). But she advised me a few years ago that she wasn't going to do it any more. Shucks.

Part of the problem for her was the difficulty in getting the lingerie fabric and elastic. So over the past couple of years, whenever I found some fabric, I bought a bunch of meters of it. And whenever I found lingerie elastic, I bought some packages. (I went shopping for some this week - Fabricland didn't have any, but WalMart did, so I took every package that they had - all 5 of them!)

And a couple of weeks ago, I got the pattern from my mom, and dived into the subject. First, I made one that was just a touch too big, but was perfect otherwise - I was impressed with my sewing. Then, I made one that fit much better. And a few nights ago, I cut out four more, making a couple of adjustments to the pattern again.

And I talked about it to one of my sewing students, at which point we scrapped any plans we had for that lesson, and she made a panty instead. (I gotta admit - I'm confused if I refer to it as a pair of panties, because there's only one of them! Hmmmmm...)

And as for me, now I won't feel embarrassed if I end up in Emergency!

Some information from newsletter reader Susan: there are a couple of Yahoo groups specializing in sewing panties, run by a lady who sells the supplies.

Another site that I have purchased lingerie elastic from is an eBay store that has a lot of variety for a really good price, and it doesn't take too long to get what I ordered. It sells things like 10 5-yard lengths of assorted colours of elastic, both the standard picot-edge lingerie elastic and fold-over elastic.

Things I Have Now Learned

Now that I have a bit more experience, I would like to share with you some of the things I have learned - some the easy way, and some, of course, the hard way!

The greatest stretch is supposed to go AROUND you. Some fabrics have some stretch in the opposite direction, and some fabrics have very little. In either case, the lesser stretch goes from front to back.	The most important measurement is your front-to-crotch-to-back length, because this is where the least stretch will be.
Sewing the two-layer crotch with finished seams at both ends is easy, once you get over the fact that the curve of the front or back is opposite to the curve on the crotch, as shown in this photo. Yes, in this case I am sewing with two different fabrics. I learned that one width of fabric would accommodate a back and a front to fit me, and then either a back or a front to fit a much tinier person. So I decided to combine fabrics, and drafted a pattern with a narrower front and a wider back. The result is in a photo towards the end of this article.
I made the inside layer of the crotch out of a light t-shirt knit. Pin the blue crotch to the back right sides together, then pin the right side of the crotch liner to the wrong side of the back. Sew these three pieces together. And yes, the serger works just fine. For the first couple of panties, I just used the regular sewing machine and a small zigzag (width 2 length 2).
It gets a bit more interesting sewing the front on - remember that both ends of the crotch should be enclosed seams. So first, pin the right side of the crotch piece to the right side of the front. Then wrap the crotch lining around everything so that the right side of the crotch lining can be pinned to the wrong side of the front. Then sew this seam.
When you turn it right side out, you get the result shown in the photo.
You can sew the leg elastic on before or after sewing the side seams. If you sew it before, then you are dealing with flat pieces. If you sew it after, you have to sew the elastic into a circle first. Either is acceptable. These photos show Lingerie elastic - soft, stretchy, with a pretty picot (loopy) edge. The elastic is just sewn on almost like a surface embellishment. The panty fabric is right side up in the sewing machine, and the elastic is just laid down on top of it, stretched appropriately, and positioned so that when you zigzag towards the left side of the elastic you catch the main fabric as well. At the end, if it turns out that you missed a section of the main fabric, just go back to that section, reposition the elastic and fabric, and re-zigzag that section. If your thread matches the elastic, no one will notice.
After I had done a few panties, I thought that it might be easier to lay the elastic next to the machine, and lay the panty fabric on it wrong side up. That way, you probably wouldn't skip sections. The photo shows the approach. What I found out was that I had more difficulty controlling the panty fabric - it seemed to slide all over the place. So after experimentation, my preferred method is to have the elastic on top, and keep checking that the edge of the panty fabric is close to, but not quite, peeking out from under the elastic.
And sometimes, you have the elastic too far to the left, so that some of the main fabric is visible past that elastic. The solution - just trim the fabric. The first photo shows that the bulk at the crotch seam is sticking out too far. The second photo shows that it has been trimmed closer to the zigzag stitching.
This photo shows the leg elastic sewn. And yes, you can see that I pieced the elastic - I don't have a lot of it, and it's hard to find, so I'm being frugal about it. Because in the end, who sees my panties???? (Oh, right! Those folks in Emergency!) I have ordered some elastic from the resource mentioned above, but it is not here yet.
The waist elastic is a bit wider than the leg elastic. The method that I am using to sew this elastic on was in the Kwik-Sew pattern book that I got from my mom. It is an interesting method - it takes two passes to complete. The first photo shows positioning the elastic with the pretty picot edge DOWN, and the elastic laid on the WRONG side of the garment. The elastic extends a bit past the main fabric on top. Sew the elastic close to the picot edge. The second photo shows the first stitching complete. You can see both the right side and the wrong side in this photo.
Now for the second pass. Fold the fabric so that the elastic is on the right side, with the picots at the edge. And sew close to the straight edge. Hint: you have to make sure that the main fabric is pulled away from the top edge, so that it doesn't stick up at the waistline. See the first photo for where to sew (you can see the first line of zigzag close to the picots). And the second photo shows the completed waistband. The double row of stitching provides security. And any unevenness in the stitching will be hidden by the fact that the thread colour matches the elastic, and no one will see the inside of the panty.
The Panty Gallery On the panties that my mom made for me, she embellished them with strips or motifs of lace. One of the things that you have to remember with lace is that it has to be compatible with the stretch of the underlying fabric. That's why most lace trim is positioned vertically, so that it won't interfere with the horizontal stretch too much. In this case, I decided to see what would happen if I tried some machine embroidery. I selected a fairly open motif, used water soluble stabilizer both below and above the main fabric, and hoped for the best. I'm quite pleased with the result.
I learned that panties do not take a whole lot of material, which is incompatible with the fact that I have several meters of appropriate (and pretty) material in my stash! And do you remember that I mentioned above that one width of fabric would accommodate a front and a back for me, and then either a front or back for a very small person? So I drafted a new pattern, making the back wider and the front narrower, so I could use this leftover width. I also trimmed it with some red lace in my stash.
Here is another basic panty with some lace sewn on both sides. The second photo shows a closer view of the lace attached with a simple zigzag.
This features some interesting lace in my stash, with a curved edge. It was a bit of a challenge getting it to be symmetrical. Maybe next time, I'll just put it on one side. This also features 5/8" foldover elastic on the leg edges. Once I learned about foldover elastic, I just had to get some. It is really easy to sew with: just tuck the raw edge of the fabric into the folded elastic, confirm that the edge is right into the fold, and zigzag it into place. It makes a neat edge.
This features some ordinary skinny pink ribbon as the trim, and some bright pink foldover elastic on the legs.