The Bathing Suit Project

Part 2

We have a winner!! Using Kwik Sew 3696, and material of similar stretch to swim wear fabric, I have made my first bathing suit. It fits well and I will be able to wear it on the beach.

(With thanks to Tanit-isis for the wonderful idea a while ago of modelling undies on a pillow for the blog pics!!)

The only adjustments I made to the pattern was to stitch the  straps at the top in place,otherwise I felt the top could slip down (not what I want in public) and then added soft moulded bra cups (about $10 from Fabricland) between the outer fabric and the lining to give the top some more shape and support.

You can see the difference the moulded cup makes.
The right side had the cup in for this pic

Showing the moulded bra cup

I made view A and also did the little skirt to match.

Now the two pieces of swimwear fabric that I order from Fashion Fabrics Club have arrived and I plan to quickly whip up two more bathing suits fro my Christmas vacation.

Cowl Neck Scarf

I finished my cowl neck scarf the other day

It was actually a nice quick knit. If you are on Ravely, it is a free pattern. A Burberry inspired cowl neck scarf (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/burberry-inspired-cowl-neck-scarf).

I used the wool that I procured in Ireland in summer. I didn’t actually buy it, I asked my Aunt to but some for me as I didn’t want to give up a round of golf to go shopping at the local market!! She choose a beautiful teal color. (Thanks Trudy!)

I learnt two new techniques with this knit. The start calls for provisional casting on and at the end you use a Kitchener stitch to sew the first and last row together. It makes a lovely clean join at the end, ideal for a cowl like this.

Luckily for me the weather has cooled down in my part of the world, and I will be starting to wear scarves again any day now!

Now I need to get going with my Owl Sweater, I am at the boring part, just knitting. Looking forward to starting to make the owls!

The Bathing Suit Project

Part 1

KwikSew 3696

I have decided to make my own bathing suit(s) for my Christmas holiday this year. For two reasons, one I cannot face the harsh lighting and terribly unflattering mirrors in my local Bikini Village store. Personally if I owned a shop that sold bathing suits I would have gentle lighting and mirrors that made you look taller and thinner! I’m sure people would buy more!! But, I digress.

Secondly, I have made a couple of bras and panties so the technique should be similar, no?

After much research I settled on the Kwik Sew K3696 pattern. My local independent fabric store that sells Kwik Sew patterns didn’t have this one in stock and says that she sometimes has a 3 – 4 week wait for delivery. Not good, I need to start now! So I bought the PDF version from the Kwik Sew website. (Of course now the pattern is available for sale at $1.99 I see on their website!!)

Next was the fabric. Neither my local independent fabric store nor my local Fabricland had any swimwear fabric. So I decided to try on-line fabric shopping. I used Fashion fabrics club and choose two swimwear fabrics. The cost was $6.86 per yard, and I only needed a yard of each. I hope I am not going to regret the purchase if I have to pay a hefty duty as it is coming from the US.

So while I wait for the fabric to arrive, I am going to print and prepare the pattern pieces and buy similar stretch fabric from Fabricland and make a practice bikini. 

Putting things off

I was sitting at work the other day when my cell phone beeped with a text message. It was from my younger son, the message was along the lines of “I don’t want to spring this on you when I get home on the weekend, so I thought I’d mention it now……” before I could scroll down to see more of the message I was thinking the worst (as mothers often do!!). Turns out he wanted me to fix his winter jacket as he will be taking it back with him.

This was a jacket he was wearing back in February and one morning announced very nonchalantly that it got a little ripped the previous evening. When I looked at it, it was ripped from the cuff to the waistband luckily along the seam. But it was the shell fabric as well as the lining. I hate mending, I really do. I would rather make something from scratch, so had left the jacket on my cutting table for these last 7 or 8 months. Turns out it took less than half an hour to fix and looks like new!!

But under the jacket had been hiding 6 pieces of flannel fabric and a pattern for men’s boxer underpants.  I had purchased the fabric and pattern late last year (September?) with the intent of making the males in my household some undies with Peter over at Male Pattern Boldness. I had washed and ironed the fabric, taken measurements and then somehow kept putting off starting them and hence the pile ended up hidden under the jacket.

So I whipped up the first pair of boxers.  Again, so quick to do and yet I had put it off for so long! Hopefully I can get the other 5 done in the next few days and another thing off of my sewing table.

First pair being worn and pronounced - comfortable!

Don't you just hate putting things off only to discover that how quickly you can get it done when you actually get round to it. The story of life!!