Wednesday, April 23, 2008

First Bathing Suit: DONE!


I'm so excited! Here it is! My first bathing suit ever! Now when I first pursued this project, everything I read stated that this is a very fun and simple sewing project. Well, maybe for others, but certainly not me. At least, not at first. It took me way too long to complete this, but after learning from my many mistakes, I'm confident the rest of my swimsuits will come along a lot faster.

Speaking of mistakes, I made quite a few of them. I learned from looking at ready-to-wear swimsuits that regular thread is used in the needles while the wooly nylon is only used in the loopers. I was doing a 3-thread overlock with all wooly nylon for the seams. After examining the RTW swimsuits, I realized I should have been doing a 4-thread overlock with regular serger thread in the needles and wooly nylon only in the loopers. I also messed this up when coverstitching and finally figured out my tensions were off because it needed regular thread in the needles--I was using all wooly. I feel kinda silly now, but then again, I'm new at all this! I didn't have much experience with wooly nylon thread. You also know that you've messed up beyond belief when you have a blister on your finger from picking out so much thread after seam ripping. Now that's sad. Really sad. So now that I'm all set, this turning out to be quite fun. Hopefully the next suit will come along much quicker.

Now the pattern I used is Kwik Sew 2605 which comes in size 4 for the smallest size. My daughters are a size 2, even my five-year-old. They are very tall and skinny like their daddy. Now I looked at the toddler swimsuit patterns and I didn't care for them at all. They looked too "babyish" for my big girls. Also, I really wanted the swimsuit with the racer back so they could frolick and rough-house in the water without straps sliding down. So being the brave (perhaps insane) soul I am, I decided I was going to alter the pattern to fit a size 2 girl with a size 4 height. So I scaled the pattern down to a size two and lengthened it on one line instead of the back waist and crotch length lines given. Scaling this thing down was so NOT fun!! When I got stuck I got my husband to help me. He doesn't sew but he LOVES math and extrapolating data. So he scaled it down and also scaled down the elastic requirements. The result of this insanity was a swimsuit that fits my daughter perfectly. I'm so shocked! Swimsuit shopping for my daughters, especially my oldest is not easy. Any suit that fits around them doesn't fit lengthwise. The result is a really low and weird looking bodice.

I'll write a pattern review on this pattern when I finish the second one I'm making from it.

Thanks to all those who are following my swimsuit adventure progress and thanks for your comments. It's always great to receive encouragement.

5 comments:

Janine said...

Wow! It looks great! I'm sure she must love it. And the dots are really in style. Bet you'll never buy a swimsuit again.

Keely said...

Adorable! Ssshh - Confession time - I never used woolly nylon on the suits I made, only normal thread. ;) BTW, Good on hubby for his help.

Paula Gardner said...

The swimsuit looks adorable on your daughter, and you can see on her face how much she likes it!

Anonymous said...

would like to fuck her, would feel so good cumming up in her.

Anonymous said...

would pay good to just drink her warm pee by the glass full.