'Tis the season for a swimsuit: Kwik Sew 3785

It seems like everyone is making a swimsuit at the moment in the blogosphere. Katie has just wrapped up her SwimAlong 2013 series on swimsuit sewing, and ladies are making the Bombshell swimsuit pattern by Closet Case Files left, right and centre.  We're having some pretty wild and woolly weather here in Sydney at the moment - rainy, windy and pretty cold (all relative of course - it's not snowing or anything!). Apparently we've just had the rainiest June in six years. Not exactly the right time of year to be swimsuit sewing I know. But being the tiger mum that I am (ha ha!) I make my kids do swimming lessons all year round, even though the lesson is early on a Sunday morning and the swimming pools isn't very warm despite being heated. I think knowing how to swim is an essential life skill, especially in Australia where we have such close proximity to so many waterways and plus the swim school we go to is so popular that if you give up your space you're unlikely to get back in on your day of choice. Because Toby is in the baby class he needs a parent in the water with him, so I sit on the sidelines, usually with a coffee in hand chatting to a friend whilst our husbands and kids get in the water and do their thing.

Unfortunately though the pool is so heavily chlorinated it just ruins the swimsuits very quickly. And buying swimsuits for Anna is very difficult because she has a long body but is so skinny, so the suits that fit width ways aren't long enough, and even the tankinis for her size aren't long enough for my liking.  Plus the swimsuits are expensive - the last pair of Speedo brand swimmers I bought her were $41! So what's a sewing mum to do? Sew some of course....

I bought two pieces of swimsuit lycra from the Remnant Warehouse from their remnant bin for the grand price of $10/m, of which I'll probably get two or three swimsuits out of a metre so it's good value. Actually this is the first fabric I've bought for ages since I've pretty much been sewing the stash all year, but despite the enormity of my stash I didn't have any swimsuit fabric so I'm still being pretty well behaved when it comes to sewing the stash.

I used Kwik Sew 3785, which is a fairly simple racer back pattern. Sewing swimsuits isn't difficult, but it is hard I think to get a professional look. Sewing on the elastic is fiddly and I think mine looks very handmade even though I twinstitched on the outside, but it's good enough for a pair of swimmers for a little girl that will probably grow out of them in no time or the chlorine will destroy them soon enough. Anna is happy enough with them and they haven't fallen apart after two wears so I guess they are a success.

I didn't do a very good job matching the stripes at all did I? I have no tips to offer on swimsuit sewing since I need to practice and improve greatly, this being my second swimsuit I've sewn (the first one being this maternity one I made for myself last year).  I can advise however that the right needle makes all the difference. And you can only tell what the right needle is by doing some sample stitching. I tried topstitching using a stretch twin needle that I purchased especially for this project, but the stitches were skipping a lot. But then I tried just a plain universal twin needle and it worked fine! I also used some clear plastic elastic because I had a lot of it on hand, but I've since discovered that using normal 3/8" wide elastic is better - hopefully my next swimsuit will be better.

But if you want to sew your own swimsuit, possibly the bombshell swimsuit pattern that everyone is raving about at the moment, here are some useful links and tutorials I found that might help you:

SwimAlong 2013 round up of resources
Creative Chicks roundup of all their tips
Zaaberry's swimsuit tutorial with free downloadable pattern
Pattern Review swimsuit sewing boards
Member's tips on sewing swimsuits on Pattern Review Youtube video by Brian Sews on how to attach perfect swimsuit elastic
Pattern School gives great advice on pattern making as well as some tips on sewing with stretch knits
Tutorial by The Strawberry Milk Run on how to make spaghetti straps from swimsuit material
Kitschy Coo tutorial for sewing a swimsuit with a band finish around the leg openings

And thank you to all who commented on the last post - you all have convinced me to keep the white dress in my wardrobe and not refashion it, although I think I will take it up a bit as suggested by Kim. I've been decluttering the house so much this year that I'm in the mindset of getting rid of things that aren't being used, but now I realise that I should hang on to things that are lovely even if they only get worn infrequently. I have so many dresses what's one more in the wardrobe?

In the nick of time: Kwik Sew 3416 done

It's probably way too late for Christmas related puns, but I did manage to finish sewing my maternity swimsuit on Christmas night just before we left the next morning for our holiday.  And I'm so glad I did - I like how they turned out so much that I only wore the ones I made and not the tankini I had purchased 'just in case'.  And they didn't fall apart either - they withstood swimming at the water theme park, the beach and the hotel resort pool with nary a popped stitch (phew!).

This is probably the bravest photo I've posted on my blog so far, but hey this is what I look like at 27 weeks pregnant - lumps, bumps, bruises, pale, freckly skin and one sizeable baby bump:

To recap I used Kwik Sew 3416, view A although I made two shoulder straps instead of a halter strap. 

I modified it to make a maternity swimsuit by increasing the length of the front body piece and gathering at the sides so it created a ruched effect across the belly. I also added a bit of extra width across the front as well, but just cut the bodice and the crotch/bottom section to match my current measurements.  Here's the inside of the gathered section:

The other change I made was to fully line the swimsuit instead of just lining the bodice and crotch section as per the pattern.  I did however follow the pattern exactly for the rest of the sewing since this is my first swimsuit attempt, with mixed results.  It looks good on the outside - I twin stitched the edges so it looks pretty much RTW from the outside:

but it is a huge mess on the inside though! The straps get sewn on last so the raw ends of the straps are visible, and the overlocked edge with the elastic stitched on by zig zag looks quite messy.

Worst of all though is the way the bra cups are sewn in.  The pattern says to snip a cross at the bust point of the lining fabric, stretch the lining fabric over the curve of the bra cup and zig zag stitch around the edges of the bra cup.  Then you have to cut away the lining fabric close to the stitching line so that the bra cup is exposed, like this:

Not only does this look a little bizarre and most unlike RTW, but the raw edge and the zig zag stitching is a little *ahem* itchy against that sensitive area of skin (sorry if that is too much info!).  If I were to make this again I would make put another layer of lining fabric in that covered up the bra cups to avoid this.  I would also possibly insert an underwire into the bodice as well to give a bit more shape and definition - you can see from that side on shot above that I am not overly endowed in the chestal region, but what I do have has sagged after pregnancy and 13 months of breastfeeding so I could use a little 'lift and seperate' action happening!!

So for about $20 I have made myself a pretty decent pair of maternity swimmers.  Whilst I do think swimsuits are extremely expensive (the last non maternity suite I purchased was $165), I do take my hat off to the sewists - these are extremely fiddly and rather time consuming to sew comparative to the size of the garment!

Don't you hate it when this happens?

The alternative title to this post, to use a good old Aussie phrase, is well that would be bloody right!

About a month or so ago I found myself driving to the airport to pick up the husband and was a bit too early due to some unheard of light traffic.  The Remnant Fabric Warehouse happens to be on my route to the airport, so I stopped in to have a look at what they had on offer.  They had such a great range of swimwear fabric for only $9.95/m that I had the crazy idea to make myself a maternity swimsuit.  Mind you I've never made a swimsuit because if there's one garment you want well cut and well made to make sure it's flattering and that it won't fall apart on you while you're wearing it, it would be a swimsuit! And of course I've not made a maternity swimsuit either, but I figure if I could avoid paying $150+ for a maternity swimsuit that I would only use for the next three months then it would be worth a try.

So I picked up this dark grey and watermelon pink fan print fabric which according to the selvage was made for Nookie Beach (a local label) by Publisher Textiles:

Pretty fabric, right? I also picked up some skin coloured lining, swimsuit elastic and some sew in bra cups, all for a good price since the prices at the Remnant Warehouse are generally pretty good.  Only I got an email from them last week informing me that they're having a 25% off everything sale! Since I haven't cut out the fabric yet, I could have just waited a little bit and saved 25% (or more likely bought 25% more fabric instead).  Don't you hate it when you have poor timing?

But it gets worse.... It turned out I didn't have a single swimsuit pattern among my collection of 600 plus patterns, and the itty bitty bikini patterns in the Burda magazine weren't exactly what I wanted.  So a few weeks ago I popped into Spotlight when they were having one of their very frequent 20% off everything sale and picked up Kwik Sew 3416 pattern:

There are hardly any swimsuit patterns available, but amazingly Kwik Sew had quite a few patterns to select from, but I thought this one would be the easiest to adapt for maternity given it has a seam under the bust line.  So with the 20% off and an extra 10% from my VIP membership I paid about $13 for this pattern (yes Kwik Sew patterns are very expensive in Australia).  And in another coincidence in poor timing last week they sent out their latest catalogue advertising 50% off all patterns, and helpfully enclosing a 15% off voucher to boot!

And then a few days ago I popped into an op shop and found not one, but two swimsuit patterns for the grand total of $1.... Sure they are 1980s style, but with a little modification they could be modernised: McCalls 9089 and McCalls 9566, both long out of print.














So after all of these grrrrrrr moments, I thought I had better get started on that swimsuit.  I'm happy to say that my test swimsuit made from some lycra I had in the stash has actually turned out quite well so I'm thinking I might just be able to do this successfully after all.  But the final annoying moment? Queen Bee maternity currently has a sale on maternity swimwear (with free postage in Australia), and I bought a tankini in solid blue for $54 marked down from  $128!!! Oh well, I'm sure I could use two swimsuits given I have a beach holiday coming up soon and just in case mine turns out ordinary.