Swimsuit for me Me ME!

There I was, enjoying my own company in a hot tub, when I glance down. The churning and bubbling water had caused my very old swimsuit to balloon up in the most embarrassing manner. I looked like a uni-boob pregnant woman, or like I'm smuggling a beach ball under my suit. Luckily, we were the only ones in the pool hall that day, so I just closed my eyes and pretended not to see anything.
My husband came along and said something along the line of, "I guess it's time for a new swimsuit, huh?".
Smart Alec.

OK, after making a few swimsuits for my daughters, I am no longer afraid to tackle swimwear. I made this new swimsuit, using the old one as a template:


I wanted to duplicate swimsuit that I had, because I wanted to reuse the bra cups (they were in good shape). I really did not feel like going shopping for bra cups.

I cut up my old swimsuit to make the pattern. Notice how slack the old swimsuit fabric was:

A few points about making swimsuits:

• When in a pinch, lining the front of an adult swimsuit with the same material (doubling up), works well. Here's the inside of the swimsuit. I know, it doesn't look that great on the inside. I reused the bra cups, and did not even bother fixing the color of the thread. I did switch out the elastic. No one can really see the bra when I'm wearing it anyway :)

• I attached the elastic to the fabric using the serger, flipped the elastic under, and used a zig-zag stitch to finish the seams. Zig-zag stitch works even better than twin needles.

The swimsuit fabric was from stash. It had cost about $3.50 for half a meter, and the two packages of chlorine resistant elastic I used, was on hand (about $1.50 per package). So, this is a really inexpensive swimsuit:

Here are the links to my previous discussions on sewing swimwear:
Swimwear Sewing Tips: Part 1
Swimwear Sewing Tips: Part 2
Swimwear Sewing Tips: Part 3

If you've been thinking of making your own swimming wear, I really encourage you to give it a shot!