Hello! I’ve made this new bikini…
Pattern: the Sophie swimsuit by Closet Case patterns; and yes, I did make two sets of Sophie bikinis earlier in the year when I was testing this pattern but there were things about both pairs that I wasn’t happy with. With the pink/black one, while I really liked the bikini top, I really didn’t like how the colour blocking on the bottoms looked. And with my grey pair, the bikini cups really were just too scant for my liking.
But mostly, it just came over me that I really wanted a black bikini this year. I’ve also kept the pink/black top, altered it to be a halter neck; and also the charcoal bottoms and plan to continue wearing them too, mixing and matching with each other and with my new black ones here too. Now I’ve got so much choice!
Fabric: a quite thick, black stretch polyester/lycra fabric from Fabulous Fabrics. It has a slightly rough side which I prefer to the smooth shiny “right” side, so I used the rougher side out for my right side. This is what you can do when you Make Your Own!
Now, sizes and fit; and this is my tip for fitting a foam-lined bra/bikini top: Cut out the foam cups, baste together and test the fit of these on you FIRST! Once the fit of the foam cups is perfect, repeat the same alterations to your fashion fabric… This is the exact same advice I would give for self-fitting a foam lined bra for yourself.
My own personal fit modifications… and please skip this bit if you want! after all it’s only of interest to me, really! For both my black, and my pink/black bikini tops, I cut the size 4 but with a size 4 cup. I pieced together the 4/4 foam cups to check the fit. I like the size of this cup on me, coverage-wise, but the fit was just a little “pouffy” so I unpicked and shaved off or “flattened out” some of the curve (about 4mm) from the vertical middle seam on each of the cup pieces. Doing this gave me a really excellent fit; so then I just cut out the fabric cup pieces the same way; shaving off 4mm of curve from the inner edges of each cup piece. Otherwise I just made them exactly to the pattern, and recycled the bikini hook closure and underwires from that grey bikini top. That very scant grey bikini top I had made previously, was a size 4 with size 2 cups. It “fitted”, but had not enough coverage!!
With the bottoms; my black fabric is quite thick, almost a little scuba-like and isn’t hugely stretchy, so to be on the safe side I made size 6 bottoms grading out to an 8 at the hips. I didn’t think it needed a full lining but I did incorporate a “panty liner” of white stretch fabric, sandwiched between the front and back in the joining seam and basted it along each leg edge before attaching my swimwear elastic. I topstitched on each side of all vertical seams 1/8″ out from each side (above). You can barely even see this with the naked eye actually because of the black-on-black! but I just wanted it to be all finished off nicely and to stylistically fit in with that same topstitching on the bikini top 🙂
Sienna doesn’t like me going in…
… and is always relieved when I come out ok! Craig took these pictures and it makes me laugh how I kinda look like an IronMan or something, charging athletically out of the surf, haha! The water was cold!
Mum and I went shopping together on my birthday; her for my birthday present, and me for her birthday present! yes, our birthdays are just a few days apart so this is a bit of a tradition. We went to Fabulous Fabrics. Haha… well how unexpected! *wink*
from L to R, top to bottom:
Uppers: this particular vinyl has that very rubbery texture which sticks to the presser foot, leading to horribly uneven stitches. I usually use a strip of tissue paper to facilitate the vinyl going evenly through the machine; but these strips are really really skinny, wonky stitching would stand out a mile and I wanted to get the topstitching perfectly even in appearance, and you can’t see through tissue paper so it just wasn’t going to cut it this time. I found though, that by turning the vinyl upside down it all worked out quite smooth and fairly easy to sew.
A bit of faffing about with strips and I finally settled upon a nice simple, multi-strapped design, cut a denim “inner sole” piece and zigzagged all the strips to this underneath the echo-panel layer, to anchor them securely into position inside the sandal. This denim inner sole is sandwiched between, and securely glued to the echo-panel above and the cork sole below. So it’s not visible in the final sandal, also, none of those strips is in danger of pulling out!
I toyed with the idea of leaving the echo-panel showing on the edge, but its woolliness actually picks up every stray hair and twig, and the white shows like every smudge, and I decided a smooth, dark edge would be less of a headache. More sensible, hides the dirt, you know. I cut and glued on a nice evenly cut strip of dark denim to the outside edge, pinning in a few strategic places where the denim didn’t instantly stick to the inner curves of the sole. Those pins can just be seen in the picture below; I sort of thought they would be a temporary measure until the glue dried, however they got pretty firmly glued in themselves and proved impossible to get out! so I’ve left them in there. After this picture was taken I went back and touched them all up with a dob of black paint so now they’re invisible. And, then they were further sealed in with several coats of varnish over the denim, so they’re pretty secure. I don’t think I have to worry that they’ll ever come out 🙂
O hey-a! After finishing my own Kelly anorak and having it admired to the nth degree by family members, I made a few more! a pale grey one for Cassie, and I also made a deep cobalt blue one for Tim’s girlfriend Kelly. Well, it seemed only right that she should have a “Kelly” too!
I quickly snapped that top picture of an unsuspecting Cassie waiting to meet up with me in town before she noticed me heading towards her… I know it’s a bit blurry and not very posed to show off the anorak to modelly perfection, but I just really like it nonetheless… to me it attests that she’s been wearing it a tonne, in fact every single occasion that I’ve seen her in the past three weeks since I finished it and gave it to her she has been wearing it. There’s no greater compliment to a seamster than that! as well as a testament to the pattern being an absolute style winner. Kelly’s worn hers each time I’ve seen her since I gave it to her too, but I’ve not taken any pictures of her in it.. will update if she sends me one 🙂
Both the anoraks are in a nice weight cotton drill from Spotlight, in fact, all the other bits and pieces are from Spotlight too. In both anoraks, I added a few inches to the length of the body and modified the pockets to have separate pocket flaps so as to close the pockets; otherwise these are both made up exactly to the pattern.
This picture below of Kelly’s anorak has been my most “liked” picture on instagram ever! far more than anything I have ever made for myself! Interesting, no? Well, I think it is, anyway 😉 I don’t know what that “says”, if anything at all, but maybe something. Social media is such a funny phenomenon. Something else also interesting to me is how a person, any person, can have a certain number of followers and the number of “likes” never ever reaches anywhere close to that number. Honestly, I have no idea about how or why this is so, but it’s just a curious thing.
I’d got enough of the same white cord for Kelly’s anorak , but since I’d found a nice, perfectly colour-matched blue zip for hers’, and used blue thread for all topstitching and there was no other white anywhere in the jacket; the white cord looked all wrong. And naturally there’s no such thing as blue cord in the whole of Perth! so I just had to dye it. And, when your regular dye-pot is HUGE and there’s just one little length of cord what’s a mad maker to do? but of course, improvise.
It’s not a super supportive thing, but realistically I have no need for a super supportive bra anyway. I still think it’s pretty stable though; I stitched the clear elastic that came with the kit along each side of the cups; so they won’t stretch out, and stitched a little strip of bias-cut white linen in with the side seams. I trimmed the linen strip right down before encasing it within the side seam, so it doesn’t show…. and this stabilised the side seams and makes them nice and strong, and they won’t stretch out either.
