New Swimwear

There hasn't been a lot of sewing going on around here lately.  Too busy taking advantage of the beautiful weather outside to spend much time in front of the sewing machine.  However before we could go out and enjoy the water, I had to make everyone a new pair of swimmers for the year.

J found some fabric at the local fabric store that he absolutely loved and had to have so I made his swim suit out of that - just a basic poly lycra with a green blue black and white pixelated print.  I used the same basic pattern as last year - euro swim trunks and a short sleeve rash vest.  I made one modification to the swim trunks this year and added a 2" wide gusset down the inseam.  I like the way this works a lot more than the basic pattern I used last year.

We also went with the full length zip his year to make the rash vest easier to get on and off.  The only issue I have with this suit is that I made the elastic in the pants too loose so the pants tend to slip down - I tried going back and running in the side seams including the elastic as I was too lazy to unpick all that elastic, it helped a little but not enough - oh well he can use these till the die and then I'll make a new pair - I have plenty of left over material.

L's swim suit pattern is the same as last years, just upsized with again that one modification to the pants to include the inner seam gusset - it seems to have eliminated the camel toe problem she had last year so I'm happy with that.

Otherwise same basic crop top and shorts with zip up rash vest.  The fabric I used for her suit is one that I bought out of the remnant bin at the end of last season - A blue and green stripe.  The fabric felt like a really good swim suit fabric but it hasn't held up well to the chlorine - one week of use and its already all faded.  And after all the trouble I went to matching those stripes.

I then started on a new swim suit for myself. This did not go quite so smoothly.

I'm happy enough with the rash vest and the pants of my swim suit.  Though the top ended up a bit tight due to the fact that I wanted to wear it the next day, but I didn't have a long enough zipper in my stash so I actually sewed up the front seam of this rash vest.

The cuffs on the sleeves are also a touch too tight, and the cuffs on the pants not quite tight enough!

The bikini top is where the majority of the issues are.  The pattern I used last time, the cups are a bit too small these days so I wanted to try and redraft that - I also wanted to try and design a swim top that didn't need underwires but was still supportive.

After a number of different iterations I was sort of happy with the design - it's pretty basic, but in my practice fabric it seemed to fit fairly well - what I didn't take into account was that my final fabric had less stretch than the cheap stuff I was using to practice - so the cups ended up being slightly too small again.

The second issue I had was material - I didn't have enough of it.  I was using a beautiful fabric that I had again found on the remnant table at the end of last year - it's a blue ombre with just the occasional big paisley pattern.

 I cut out the rash vest and pants first figuring the top was all small pieces and I'd be able to use the left overs - unfortunately the only left overs big enough had a bit of the paisley pattern on it and it looks a bit strange - to put it mildly.  Luckily the top doesn't get worn by itself very often, I usually have the rash vest over the top.

Overall it's not as fantastic as I had envisioned when I found this material, but it's functional and I've already worn it a couple of times.  I would however like to try again at some stage this summer.