Sewing Swimwear, without clear elastic

This orange Lycra fabric was a remnant that my daughter picked when we visited Dublin last October. As she has just started swimming classes in school, it was the perfect time to sew a new swimsuit.

 

 

The design process was a lot of fun. She wanted a swimming costume with a skirt and then thought for a while about which TV/book/film character who wore/was orange. She came up with 'Applejack' from My Little Pony. The most distinguishing part of any of the ponies is their 'cutie mark' so the three apples were appliqued to the skirt. The rosette isn't part of the character, but was created to continue the pony theme.

 

I am not confident sewing with stretch fabric and even less so with Lycra fabric. I used a small-sized ballpoint needle to prevent holes in the fabric. When I realised that there was no clear elastic in my stash I almost didn't sew this. A quick internet search led me to an excellent tip on Patternreview. In fact It includes more than one tip.

• It describes how to sew swimwear with regular elastic.
• It describes where to stretch the elastic for a better fit.
• It describes where to zig-zag on the elastic so that the edge of the fabric covers the edge of the elastic (Read the comments on the tip).
• It also describes how to use a regular straight stitch on the outside.

Following these tips made sewing the elastic in the arms, neckline and leg openings very straightforward and much easier than the last time I tried. It has made me much more confident in sewing swimwear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Though it's very acceptable to use a zig-zag stitch on swimwear, I much prefer how the straight stitching looks on the outside, and I was surprised how much it stretched with the fabric.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pattern is adapted from Ottobre 3/2011 no30 and the skirt was drafted using the hip circumference measurement and sewn with a stretch stitch.

 

This swimsuit sewed up so quickly that we're already planning more 'My Little Pony' versions. However sourcing swimwear fabric in Ireland is not at all easy. Any Lycra fabric available is mostly marketed as dancewear or for costumes. We'll be crossing our fingers that it won't disintegrate in chlorine!!

 

 

 

 

 

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Burda knit dress & using tiny ribbon pieces

 

All parents of school-going children should be prepared for the 'colour' days that happen in schools which are often for fundraising. There are red days to support county teams, blue days for autisim awareness, green days for our national Saint and last week we had a yellow day for cancer support. I don't normally sew for each colour day, but this time I was glad of the excuse to take a break from communion dress sewing.

This girls dress is from the current issue of Burdastyle magazine 4/15 no.136. Every month there are a few children's patterns in the magazine and I have always liked their sizing and fit. This dress was no different. I graded up a size to 134, just to allow for some growing room, but the dress would have still fit well.

 

 

 

It's an interesting design, with the neck facing applied to the outside. It is also clearly well-designed as the facing fit beautifully and I love how neatly the shoulder seams align. This would be straightforward on a woven fabric, but usually much more difficult on a knit fabric.

 

 

 

Though I used a stable knit fabric (not very stretchy) I didn't want the shoulders to get stretched with wear. The best way to do this is to stabilise the shoulder seams with interfacing which is hidden. I took a different approach by choosing to make the stabiliser more obvious and picked some janemeans stitched ribbon.

 

 

 

The green stitched ribbon is placed under the shoulder seam while it is being sewn, and a second line of stitching is sewn along the ribbon and seam edge. Once the ribbon and seam are pressed it forms a neat finish to the seam as well as preventing the shoulder seam from stretching and sagging. Of course this is also a perfect way to use those tiny pieces of beautiful ribbon leftover from bigger projects.

 

 

 

I altered the pattern by not including a back opening, and not adding neckline and pocket piping. The instructions recommended sewing the side seams and then inserting the sleeves but it was much quicker to sew each sleeve to it's armhole and the sew each sleeve seam and side seam all at once.

 

 

 

I just had a day to sew the dress so unusually didn't consult my daughter on the fabric and the pattern, but she was thrilled to have a yellow dress and got very involved (obviously, I suppose!) in picking out the fringe and neckline trims.

 

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Sewing a knit dress - Tiramisu!

I decided to join Steph's (from Cake Patterns) Tiramisu Sewalong, because I had the fabric and the pattern and I thought it would help with motivation to sew after the holidays.

What a great experience! The posts on the Sewing Cake website are very helpful and the Flickr group has lots of great pics of the process.

The pattern is a completely different concept in sizing, sewing instructions and fit.

The sizing, devised by Steph is based on a high-bust measurement so i found I bypassed a whole conversation in my head comparing the pattern to others, and comparing my 'size' to some ideal 10,12,14,16. The sewing instructions are very visual and remind me of the Japanese style that I love. Achieving a good fit is built into sewing steps and means that you baste, fit, alter, sew throughout the whole process.

I have a habit of avoiding muslins, because I measure patterns carefully, and sometimes tissue fit, but my main fabric was Liberty of London cotton jersey (from Raystitch.co.uk), so this time I didn't take a chance!

The muslin fabric is a viscose jersey which I used before for a Vogue dress and is lighter than my main fabric. I cut the Midriff piece of the pattern longer in the hope that the muslin would be wearable, and it worked.

 

The muslin was really helpful in relation to sizing. There was way too much room in the shoulders for me - with the shoulder seam ending up a few inches down my back!. I usually have to shorten the bodice in patterns and this was no different. Also the weight of the skirt was going to pull down the dress even more, so I went down a size.

 

 

The only alteration I made to the pattern was cutting the front skirt on the fold rather than two pieces to save fabric, as I had just 2 metres of the Liberty.

There are still some lines/wrinkling in the front bodice at the crossover, but it is almost impossible to see because of the print on the fabric.

 

 

 

 

 

As the skirt is cut on the bias, the dress needs to be left hang before hemming. It hung for 2 days, and I turned up the hem once, turning up extra where it was hanging more, and basted it. It seem to have worked - the hem is mostly very even.

 

It's an incredibly comfortable dress to wear, and best of all there's no gaping at the front because of the binding. The Flickr group has lots of great pictures, especially the 'no gaping' shots!

 

 

 

 

 

I don't sew much with knits and there seems to be a few reasons for this. It's difficult to access knit fabric in Ireland despite all the beautiful cotton knits, many organic, being produced in Europe.

Knits are mostly not conducive to my usual seam finishing methods, because the seam becomes too heavy for the fabric. So with knits, I have to get over myself! and my need for tidiness on the inside and leave seams exposed inside the dress.

There doesn't seem to be a classification of knit fabrics similar to that of cotton fabrics, which means two similar knits when sewn with the same pattern will produce 2 completely results and fit.

It's been so worthwhile participating in the Tiramisu Sewalong. It has helped me to be more confident in sewing with knit fabric and learning how it behaves. Steph has been a very 'hands on' teacher and very responsive to pictures and queries posted.

 

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