A sewing first for me… a swimsuit!
I’ve been seeing these cute bikini sets with crisscross straps and matching sarongs, but rather than buy one (even though some of them are very inexpensive), I thought: how hard can it be to make?
It turned out to be a little bit challenging, but still accomplished in just a few evenings of measuring, cutting, and sewing. I did not follow a pattern and made several mistakes along the way, but it still turned out very wearable.
I love typographic prints as well as bright colors, so this fabric from Spandex World was an easy decision.
My starting point was these bikini cups purchased from Etsy shop StitchLoveStudio. They have a lot of supplies useful for making lingerie or swimwear. Note that these cups each have one convenient straight-cut corner for the top of the bikini or bra where the strap goes.
I made my pattern pieces from these cups and from a pair of underwear which resembled the final shape I wanted for the bikini bottoms. I added seam allowances and a little extra width for gathering at the bottom of the cups and at the tops of the underwear pieces, because my plan was to fully line the bikini and then sew casings for straps into the double-layered fabric.
Here are the pattern pieces – you can see all the marking I did as I worked on the final shapes:
And here’s the final bikini complete with (what felt like) miles of straps. To make the straps, I cut 1 1/4″ strips along the entire width of the fabric and sewed them with a zigzag stitch down the middle of each folded strip. I then trimmed the seam allowances and turned them by attaching a strong, short piece of thread with a fat needle to the end of one seam allowance, dropping the needle into the tube, eye first, and slowly inching it along, turning the fabric as I went.
Some other construction notes: I topstitched the bikini cups to the purchased interior structured cups, and I also topstiched the leg holes of the bottoms and threaded elastic thread through the tiny casing created by the topstitching. These steps help prevent the lining from peeking out and keep the leg holes from gapping. The linings for the bottoms and the cups were each created in two pieces, leaving a hole in the lining seams for turning right side out (and for inserting the interior cups); I then hand-sewed those holes shut.
Here’s a shot of the bikini bottoms without the sarong. Someday I’m going to follow a pattern and make a swimsuit with more professional methods, but I’m happy with how this one turned out!
The matching sarong has a curved seam on one side and ties on the other. The ties are double-layered while the rest of the sarong is a single hemmed layer.
Here are a few other pictures from our beach day – we like to go to the Montrose Dog Beach along Lake Michigan. Some photographers were there with a traveling frame and the Blue Angels were doing their air show along the lakefront that day; so it was an extra-fun summer outing.
