This is the sad story of a rank beginner who completely messed up his first FreeSewing project, but sorta-kinda made it work in the end.
I made the Bruce boxer-briefs about a year ago, just a couple months after I started sewing later in life. I was a complete noob, but I thought, “How hard could underwear be?!”.
Well, when you measure incorrectly, don’t understand the properties of different fabrics, and get your terminology wrong, well, a disaster is pretty predictable. 
I dutifully entered my measurements into a new measurement set, clicked on the Bruce design, and set about configuring & printing my first pattern here. My first mistake? I tried minimizing the printout. The pattern took up a lot of pages, & I tried maneuvering the pattern pieces closer together, but there was just tiny amounts of pattern on several pages, so I tweaked my measurements a little so the pattern fit in fewer pages, assuming the fabric would stretch. Haha, I mean, is that the stupidest idea ever, or what? Yes, yes it is.
My plan was to upcycle an old tank top into new underwear. Well, of course, a tank top has the least fabric of just about any non-underclothes garment, so I ended up having to use 2 tank tops. I figured red & yellow would go well together in a color block style, which I had just discovered. Of course, after the initial sewing, I looked at the result (figure 1) and thought—this reminds me of something. A superhero maybe? I’m not really a comic book guy, but I did have a friend who introduced me to Shazam many decades ago. So I searched for Shazam and, sure enough, it was practically an exact color match! (figure 2, although my physique doesn’t look like that in any way, shape, or form!). Cosplaying was not what I was going for, but, oh well. Maybe I have a Halloween costume for next year.
The mistakes only multiplied at this point. As a child of the 60s & 70s (yes, the previous century, folks) I wore short-shorts as a teenager, so I made the pattern with a reduced leg length to re-live the glorious (not) 70s. Then I used 100% cotton jersey (tank tops, remember) as my “stretch knit”.
I didn’t understand at the time that a “stretch knit” nowadays pretty much refers to lots of elastane/Lycra/Spandex & polyester, stretching both horizontally & vertically. So when I tried them on (figure 3), they were super tight (squeaky, high pitched voice here), barely containing my rump and squeezing my thighs & jewels to the point of discomfort. They were really unwearable and unsuitable unless I wanted to become a drag queen. I love my divas but that isn’t (yet?) a life goal.
I was ready to toss them in the garbage and call it a valiant but failed first attempt. But then I thought, hey, I know how to sew a seam, I can modify them. So I cut contrasting strips of fabric, about an inch wide, ripped out the side seams, and sewed one onto each side. That, at least, could solve the horizontal tightness. I tried them on (figure 4) and found that, while it helped in the thighs and “down there”, the waist became too loose.
I recalled taking geometry in high school, and thought maybe I could nuance my change a little bit. So I ripped out the seams again (sigh), and cut my new fabric inserts to leave less space near the waist, but progress slowly to wider at the crotch & thighs (figure 5).
I tried them on and they were much more comfortable and fit well enough that I figured a big fat elastic waistband could help their lack of vertical stretch a little bit (to cover my bum), so I sewed a waistband on (I won’t show you a photo of that hot mess) and they kinda sorta fit (figure 6). So now I pretend I’m a fashion designer, with my first product being underwear with a swooshy stripe down the side.
In retrospect, I suppose you could call this my first foray into garment fitting and pattern creation. All the talented people behind the infrastructure & designs of FreeSewing.eu made it all possible. That wasn’t an intentional plan, but all my mistakes came together to force me down that path of learning. I guess necessity really is the mother of invention!
