I don't have a problem...

This past week, I haven't had a lot of time for sewing (or blogging, for that matter), but all of it has been dedicated to lingerie. Did anyone mention before that sewing lingerie is addictive?

First of all, I drafted, tested and made the cheeky shorts from Pattern School. With panties, I hate to see the lines through my clothes, either at the hip or on my bottom. Thongs are one way to avoid this, but it's nice to have more options. In RTW, I also like shorts and bikini styles with stretch lace along the legline, instead of edging elastic. This keeps the panties in place but distributes the pressure more evenly, which results in a line-free exterior. 
I thought I might be able to use this basic pattern to create something like that.

To my taste, most of the instructions at Pattern School are for really skimpy styles. So, I took care not to make the rise quite as low as in the tutorial. I also used my own panty sloper, rather than drafting another one. 
I tried the pattern out in turquoise lycra, with black picot edging (the best look from the elastics in my stash). 
When I put the panties on before sewing on the elastic, I thought they could work well but wondered if I had made the leg openings to low. After applying elastic to one of them, I had my answer. The elastic was cutting into my leg, definately indicating a too-low and, as a result, too tight leg opening. I unpicked the elastic, cut a bit off the the legline (not forgetting to alter the pattern as well) re-did it. The result was the pair of panties at the top. 
I wore them all day on Friday and they are really comfortable. However, the picot elastic (and/or the fact that I don't have 'buns of steel', like the model on the Pattern School website) means that I wouldn't wear these under all my clothes.

Then, I was confident to start on the design I really had in mind: another pair of panties using the sage green lycra and lace. I changed to shape again: cutting the leg openings higher at the sides and altering the angle of the back gusset (following the instructions. the difference in crotch width in the picture is not a result of any change in the pattern, it's largely down to perspective in the photograph). Because I wanted to use the lace for the back, I added most of the back gusset to front and cut it out the lycra. 
I'm really happy with the way these turned out: comfortable, a bit surprising with that nice lace at the back and best of all: no panty lines in sight!

After this, I went on a bit of a bra-quest, but that's a story which will have to wait till next time...

P.S. in other panty news, I also wore the thong I made from Melissa's pattern for a whole day for the first time. And I feel I have to mention a bit of an issue with that: I used lycra for the front and back section, which has two-way (or is that four-way?) stretch. When wearing this thong under clothes, for a longer period of time, it felt like either the gusset was too long, or the sides were too wide, and probably both. Both issues could be solved by going down a size but I thought it was worth mentioning because before, I had concluded that size M was right for a Burda hip size 38. 
If you make this pattern from a fabric without lengthwise stretch, I don't think there will be such an issue.