Hello again everyone! I wanted to share another one of my swimsuit projects~!
I was instantly attracted to this pattern! I love the cutout details. I thought it looked like a simple enough pattern to start with, and I knew Evie la Luve's instructions to be detailed from my previous experience making one of her other patterns, the Darcey bralette. I went right into using the fabric I wanted to use, without making a toile first.. I regretted all of these decisions almost instantly. I regretted the pattern choice, fabric choice, and materials choice. Had I done things differently, I would choose a more simple pattern and used my cheapest, most basic fabric. Anyways, here's a pic of the swimsuit! I'll go over how I made it, and what I thought about the final result. Please ignore the blue water soluble markings on the swimsuit!
I made a size xxs top and size S bottoms, following the size chart. The bottoms fit, but the top is too tight. I would definitely size up on the top next time! I really should have made a toile first, but didn't. Definitely did not have beginner's luck with the project! The swimsuit top is not padded, and I wanted padding. I asked Hannah from Evie la Luve for suggestions, and she suggested that I make the center and 2 side pieces out of the cut/sew foam, & finish the edges with binding rather than folding the edges under. I did this, and this technique worked out. The pattern is fun, I would make it again one day, but I would definitely make a toile of the top next time to make sure that it fits properly, rather than jumping in with my preferred fabric!! It's not a difficult pattern, but I def would not have made this as my first swimsuit pattern! I assumed since I had some success making multiple bralettes that I'd have no issues making this swimsuit. I was so wrong. The materials used in sewing swimwear are much more difficult to use!
Here are some struggles that I had with sewing this as my first swimsuit. First, I struggled with the technique of elastic application. That was def the hardest part of sewing this. I found the instructions for this technique to be too vague for a first timer. I watched her YouTube video too, and she directly serged the elastic to the fabric. I attempted this technique many times, and kept failing! The elastic wouldn't align to the 2 flimsy layers of fabric perfectly. This technique may work fine for someone with experience & a good handle of the material, but def not for a beginner. I undid and redid this many, many times. I searched for other elastic application tutorials, and didn't find one that worked well for me until I took the "Sew your dream swimsuit" class by ClosetCore. The technique involves more steps, but gives you much more control. It has you serge the legholes together so that the fabric doesn't shift, and then sew (rather than serge) the elastics to the legholes. I gave up on sewing the Mimi swimsuit for months, due to lack of success at sewing the elastics.. When I went back to it, I used the ClosetCore technique.
Like I mentioned earlier, the materials I chose were not user friendly. The fabric I chose was thin & flimsy, and the little silver foils all over the fabric were annoying. They were these hard, plastic stickers. When I sewed through them at the seams, they had hard edges and were scratchy. I found I had to remove them from the edges of the fabric (sometimes I forgot to, though). I didn't realize that this fabric would be more difficult to work with; def should've chosen a thicker fabric with no embellishments. Also.. the wooly nylon was a nightmare to thread and work with. It kept forming tangled messes under the fabric. I honestly am not a fan of working with wooly nylon. I use it anyways nowadays for rolled hems, but that's about it. & the rubber swimwear elastic... Is to this day my least favorite material to work with. My machine skips stitches with this material. It's a problem. I've tried everything to resolve it. I have literally wasted hours upon hours on troubleshooting alone. I've mentioned this in all of my swimsuit blog posts so far.. Ok, last one, I promise. So I'm planning to get a better machine that can work with more difficult materials. I got really mad because nobody mentions what a nightmare rubber swimsuit elastic is to work with, and all of the sewers out there raved about how great it is. If it wasn't for issues sewing it, maybe I would too. & then when I attempted to top stitch with the twin needle... yeah, it was NOT happening. I broke 3 different twin needles attempting to top stitch the elastic. Birdsnests would form almost every time no matter what I did. I was able to finish the bottoms with the twin needle (after undoing it and redoing it many, many times. I seriously spent hours on this alone), but was so fed up that I just zigzagged the top together. I hate the twin needle. Maybe my mind will change when I have a better machine. Also, I can't sew 2 layers of rubber swimsuit elastic without birdsnests. It's not a problem I see talked about. So I assume it's my machine.
Sewing swimwear has not been easy for me. I've probably complained too much about it ha.. I just feel like I've had so many problems that aren't talked about. I don't see anything out there about all these things that can go wrong, and I wanted to put it all out there!
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