Retribution? no, Distribution

 I have been struggling to get a good fit from a bra pattern. My Bottom Cup Depth (BCD) is short, and my Horizontal Hemisphere has measured for a size or two larger. When I purchase Ready to Wear (RTW) at the store, I struggle to find anything that fits. I’m still not sure on my wire size, as that is one of those things that changes with styles.

Let’s look at some popular patterns that have BCD sizing. 

First, the one who introduced many of us to the concept of BCD, and is the maker of  PUG patterns, Beverly Johnson. 4.0 BCD is size 36D, and its sister sizes. 

Interesting note here: the chart on her BCD page reflects how sister sizing was in RTW. Every other band size had the matching cup volume. The in-between bands had an off by one which actually gave more bra sizes and fit more women. This era of every cup goes up one band/down one cup excludes loads of women. See in the chart that 32 36 40 44 48 all have 5.0, and 34 38 42 44 all have the next quarter inch up? The very small cups, and outliers in the mid sizes are the exceptions. When sewing your own, a slight adjustment to the band length is simpler than adjusting cup sizes.

The more recent designer using BCD, Lily Fong of LilyPaDesigns has been focusing on the size based on measurements and seems to be removing the cup sizes from the patterns. But, they are still on some pattern pages in a web search to help you to know which size grouping to purchase. In her chart, 4.0 BCD is about 36C (if you add band width to the 32DD to sister size up) in her PLUS patterns, but a 36D in the CORE patterns. 

I think I am very close to fitting the Lusamine by Lilypadesigns, but I made an oopsy with my last one and the center gore wasn’t the proper adjustment. For this Lusamine, I had shortened the BCD from 4.0 to about 3.5. I did alter the center triangle to fit me better…

In photos of the bra, though, there is an obvious issue: the bottom of the cup (more on my smaller side) is wrinkling. Is it caused by the angle of the underwires being skewed? Is it from the adjustment to the BCD that I did? According to Hugs for Your Jugs, it might be more from the latter.

So, then I ponder, if lowering the BCD through the method suggested most just causes the apex arch to tip, and thus not holding it at the proper angle, how should I move the apex to adjust for a lack of bottom fullness, or indeed adjust for being more top full?

Going down in cup size may result in the lower cup fitting better, but I used the smallest PLUS cup size. Lily’s pattern are not just grouped by sizes, each size set is based on an entirely different shape, so going down to the CORE pattern means that the entire bra needs to be adjusted. I plan to soon try the 3.8 in the CORE pattern to see if it fits at all, or I may just try the CORE cups in the PLUS band.