A tale of two swimsuits

Sometimes I get gripped with an urgent need to make something.

If you're a maker, you might recognise that feeling. 

It's an itch, sometimes bought on by something that you see somewhere, in a magazine, on a blog, on instagram. It starts a train of thought that soon becomes a little obsession. For me, anyway.

My swimmers obsession began with my gorgeous friend-I've-never-met Jane (@lempobee on instagram and co-owner of @thedrapery) in a pair of newly minted self made swimmers (bathers, togs, cozzies, swimsuit - so many terms for the humble bathing costume).

I loved them, and I love following Jane along on her many sewing adventures.

She's kind of my idol for trying new things, and so far I've watched her sew bras, men's jackets, and jeans...all of these things are like the frontiers of sewing for me. Aka, I've never made them.

At this point in a hot January, seeing her magnificent pair of swimmers was enough to spark that obsession for me to try and make my own.

A good part of this desire was also because the pattern she used - The Abigail Swimsuit by OhhhLulu - is exactly the style that I like. A low cut boy leg, a simple cup with no insert or underwire, and a back that I immediately thought I could easily modify to make the swimmers of my dreams. 

Read on if you dare, it's a long story!

We live on the south west coast of Victoria, and we swim at the first sniff of weather warm enough to get wet. My swimmers get a thrashing. 

And like many women, I've settled over the years for 'good enough'. This is something I talk about quite a bit in my

workshops, how sewing can overcome the need to settle for less than perfect when we buy ready to wear. 

Almost the right colour, almost the right cut, if only the back didn't cut in so much, or the leg line was lower/higher/not so tight, etc etc, blah blah, blah. 

So here was my swimsuit sewing carrot! Thank you Jane for being my inspiration.

And here is my swimmers sewing experience.

I purchased the pattern via Etsy, and set about gathering my materials. The Drapery is a fabulous source of all sorts of sewing supplies for me, and they were able to supply me with stretch sewing needles for my machine, and some swimsuit elastic.

I bought some glorious Liberty print swim fabric from The Fabric Store, and some special swimsuit lining from The Remnant Warehouse. All arrived in good time, and I was raring to go.

As soon as I cut the pattern pieces, I could see straight away how I could raise the back of the swimsuit by taping the strap piece to the back piece and just cut along the top of the strap, creating a higher coverage back for my bathers.

This meant that I would need to change the order of sewing construction, which was no problem at all.

I began by constructing the cups. Being a generously endowed woman I needed to add a bit extra to the fullness of the cups. After a bit of google research, I decided that to add a half inch to the apex of each cup piece would probably give me enough room, and on first try, they appeared to be fine (more on that later).

You can see that for the half inch I added to the curve, I also added a half inch to the height.

Attaching the cups to the front of the swimsuit first, I could then go ahead and sew up the side seams, and add the elastic across the back, and up each side cup.

So far, so good. I was thrilled with how they were looking!

At this point, I thought I'd try them on for size, and quell horreur! They were miles too short for my body, and quite snug. Even with a good tug, I knew they wouldn't fit up over my bust.

Back to the drawing board.

Lucky for me, the swim fabric, and the lining, were such generous widths, I was able to cut a new pair with a little scrap to spare.

I decided to take a more thorough approach to sizing, and added 3cm to each side seam, even though my measurements originally called for extra width, I'd decided that negative ease (garment measurements smaller than my own body measurements) would be better for stretch fabric used for swimmers. Even though this should be accounted for in the pattern.
I also added an extra 4 inches to the length. I based that extra on the amount the first pair were short of my underbust.

It felt like a lot, but following one of my sewing axioms of 'you can always cut extra length off, but you can't add it on' I went ahead.

Before I added the cups, I pinned the side seams of my swimmers together and (very gently!) tried them on. Length spot on, width too wide.

Easy fixed, I trimmed up the sides by about 2cm, leaving a little extra width to the orginal size extra large.

Pressing on, I completed my new swimmers with no other problems, and was thrilled to try them on to find a pretty good fit.

Except, except...I found the straps too thin to comfortably hold my generous bust as a halter neck. They really needed to be wider.

Also, my cups turned out to be a smidge small. Never a great look.

And so, the sewists best friend, the unpicker, was the only solution. Unpicking is one of those sewing jobs that is tedious at the best of times, but on two way stretch swim fabric, well, let's just say it was a chore, but I was determined to get these right!

 Lucky I had enough scrap to cut an extra pair of cups and lining, and I could add another extra half an inch to the curve of each of the cup pieces - meaning my adjustment for my bust is now an extra inch on both of each cup pieces at the centre seam for a total of 2 inches each individual cup, less seam allowance.

Trying my finished suit on again, I was almost happy to call it done.

Except, except....

This time, the elastic on the inner edge of the cups was wanting to turn outward. I just knew this would bother me more than I would be able to ignore, and so I spent an evening pondering what might be causing the problem.

I looked at lots of photos on the internet of swimsuit sewing, and realised that I probably needed to put my overlocker to use to sew that elastic on. It twigged that I could overlock over the whole width of the elastic, creating a really good firm and flat finish. More (much more) tedious unpicking ensued.

I actually tried this method on the first pair to make sure it would work, and rather than let these almost finished pair go to waste, I decided to finish them completely and find a friend to give them to. Jokingly I say I'll find my Cinderella!

As an aside, if you don't have an overlocker, and you're thinking about doing lots of sewing, I can highly recommend the investment. They are kind of essential for sewing stretch fabric for best results, and provide a beautiful finish for other seams on woven fabric.

I digress...

Turning the elastic to the inside of my swimmers and finishing with a zigzag topstitch...and voila! This is the finish I was after!

I eked out some wider straps from the tiny bit of scrap left, sewed them to the cups, tried on my second pair of swimmers, and this time, they are PERFECT. The original straps went to the first pair, and so I have two finished pairs of swimmers, one for me, one for a friend.

I love them, and with a little bit of perseverance, now I know I'll never have to settle for almost good enough again. I'm already looking for more fabric for another pair.

All the details.
Pattern : The Abigail Swimsuit by OhhhLulu
Fabric : Liberty swim from The Fabric Store
Lining : special swimwear lining from The Remnant Warehouse
Swimwear elastic & stretch machine needles : The Drapery

Size : XL
Modifications
 +1cm to side seams
+4inches to length
+1inch to centre seams of cup pieces
wider straps