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.