Pub­lished 02/27/2014

Ever since col­lege, I’ve mused about mak­ing a biki­ni. They are easy to make and require very lit­tle fab­ric (obvi­ous­ly), so I’m not real­ly sure why it took me so long to make one. Per­haps it’s because of my taste for poly­ester swimsuits.

Grow­ing up, my sis­ters and I went through so many lycra swim­suits, because they would fade in just a few weeks from the chlo­rine and sun. So when Speedo & TYR start­ed offer­ing longer last­ing poly­ester suits, I nev­er went back to the lycra suits.

Even with all the beau­ti­ful lycra fab­rics avail­able in my local stores, I was nev­er inspired enough to make swim suits out of it. I just wasn’t con­vinced that it was durable enough to with­stand the chlo­rine and sun.

Final­ly after my sis­ter’s per­sua­sion (and com­mis­sion), I decid­ed to give vin­tage bathing suit mak­ing a try! Nei­ther of us are string biki­ni gals. We like more coverage/support. So we decid­ed on a retro swim­suit design. This design requires much more work than your typ­i­cal lycra swim­suit. Why? Because the fab­ric is polyester/rayon (looks like linen) and not stretchy, so the fit must be exact. In addi­tion, I’ve also added bon­ing to the cups and side.

Before begin­ning my sister’s suit, I decid­ed to make one for myself first. I found a sewing pat­tern to help me pat­tern the cups, but the pattern’s direc­tions were slim so I used it as a guide instead. I also changed it up by adding bon­ing to the cups with elas­tic and snaps on the back, rather than hooks.

I LOVE this swim­suit! It’s extreme­ly flat­ter­ing & fun!

Good thing I made a prac­tice suit because I have a few things I want to change to the design for my sister’s swim­suit! You’ll have to wait to see it, in the meantime…

 Here’s a sneak peek!

One of the lit­tle girls we babysit for want­ed to design her suit!  I told her if she drew up dif­fer­ent designs, I’d choose one of them! Here’s the draw­ing we are using for inspiration!

I made turquoise poly­ester bot­toms to go with this top! I also plan on mak­ing a match­ing high-waist­ed skirt to go with this top too!