Another thing I LOVE is the cubbies in the closet. Lynette, my mom and I all combine our scraps. This is really great, especially when you do applique and just need small pieces. We have all these orange boxes with the scraps in certain colors. But the closet cubbies organize them so great! Yay for using all your scraps!

I had a huge bag of ribbon not on spools. I bought grab bags holding 30 yards of misc. ribbon for $2.00 and so to sort all of that plus my own odds and ends, I just put them in gallon bags according to color and clipped all the bags to a trouser hanger I found that was metal and had rubber lining the bottom. This ribbon stash hangs in the closet.

I really love great finds and projects that transform junk into something useful, and cost me nothing!

And since my form is closer to the plumper women of the past rather than the super-thin 12-year-old-boy-look of today, I thought it would be more flattering...I hope.


The bathing suit has four main pieces, The back, the bodice, then the front has the lining, and the top skirt piece.



I found a great deal on the black lycra from fabric.com and it was around $4.00/ yd. It's thick and really great. I didn't even have to line the back.



The front is rouched, or scrunched. So it had to be longer than the length of my torso, because it would be scrunched up. I made the front 2.5 times longer than my torso measurement.


I bought a cheap $7 bra to go inside the bodice. I hacked off the straps, and sewed 1" wide elastic, probably 10" or so for the straps. I cut off the hook on the back and added 4-5" of 1" elastic. To figure out the shape of the bodice, I put tissue paper on my chest, then put the bra on, then drew on the paper where I wanted the bodice to go. That works pretty great.

I thought initially I'd make this a tutorial of each step, but a little way into it I realized no one may even like this design and therefore not make it, so a waste of my time.

But I did want to show the construction of the suit, mainly how the two front layers connect with the back. Because you have the front skirt layer, then the lining swim suit layer, and both have to connect with the back.

The crotch of the lining was sewn to the crotch of the back.


Then elastic was zig-zagged along the leg lines, folded over, and top stitched.

But the elastic doesn't connect together around the legs. Both ends of elastic end up being sewn in the side seams. The lining front leg elastic goes up like regular swim bottoms into the side seam. But the elastic from the back went low around and under the booty and connected in the side seams at the bottom of the skirt rouched front layer.

So in the end, from the sides it looks like a mini-dress, but there is the lining swim suit underneath the rouched skirt.
This was the trickiest thing to figure out in the design and I was so excited it all worked out so well.

I couldn't decide whether to sew the straps straight back or criss-cross. My mom suggested bringing them together in the V shape, and I like it a lot.


I think this is my favorite bathing suit I've ever had! It was great for our recent trip to Hawaii!

Vote for Lynette's dress design #12!!!

Takini

Rashguard

This was the easiest to make, just a shirt. The shorts I already wrote about. I chose to use some blue/green lycra from my other takini top as contrast on the rashguard shirt. For the pattern, I just used a regular stretch knit tee that fits a little snug. I had to just create the sleeve to what I wanted, since I chose to make them the baseball seams.

I don't know that we really needed the protection of rashguards, we were only boogie boarding, but I do know I was glad to have it on to prevent sunburns.

I LOVED boogie boarding. I wish I knew how to surf, or lived close enough to waves to learn. I had such a blast boogie boarding, I can't imagine how fun real surfing must be!

We're celebrating my husband's graduation a couple months early. We've always planned on going next May when he actually graduates, but an opportunity popped up to go to Hawaii... I'm so excited!

I hate store bought bathing suits, so I made my own little collection for our trip. I got a couple yards of black and blue/green and from it made a black one piece, blue/black halter takini, rashguard, and boy short swim bottoms.

I hope they work as well as I hope! I think out of all of them I'm most pleased with the black one piece, even though it looks weird hanging.

My little sister gave me the confidence to make my own swimwear, and it really wasn't as bad as I had always thought...and well worth the effort to have a bathing suit that I actually feel comfortable wearing!