Waterwear

The performance wear (leotard) sewing class I did last year was very valuable. The dress pattern I developed as a result of it is one of my favourites. But the (nicely fitted) swimming togs I actually made during the course are not quite my thing. So with a beach holiday on the horizon I took out the pattern again to make some togs that were a bit more me.

I am loving the halter neckline that is around at the moment. So I used the pattern off a dress in my wardrobe for the neckline and combined it with the leotard body pattern from the performance class. I also put a tear-drop shaped cutout in the back – because who puts a back in swimming togs? (The shape ended up being more round once it was stretched out for wearing but it still looks fine.)

I find one piece leotards to be uncomfortable and inconvenient so I made it as a two-piece with what the internet tells me is called a 'tankini'.

The big learning exercise for this project was putting in a built-in bra – method courtesy of google and guesswork. The lining fabric (this can be the same as the main fabric but I didn't have enough left) is cut using the same pattern as the outside then shaped marginally thinner towards the bottom edge that will sit just under the bust. This is sewn to an elastic band. I sewed the whole thing up at this point and worked out the cup placement while wearing it. Sewing the cups in afterwards was awkward, so I suspect there is a better way, but I wasn't sure how to do the placement without being able to reproduce the stretch that would be in the fabric when the garment is worn.

The cups are chlorine resistant but I couldn't find any proper swimsuit lining so I just used stretch lining. Given that I've been swimming once in the last ten years I'm not really expecting these to suffer from over-wear. The main fabric is chlorine-proof, left over from the performance-wear course. I looked for some woven chlorine-resistant fabric to make board shorts but I couldn't find a shop that stocked it. Some shops didn't even know what it was.

I was happy with how the swimsuit turned out. As with the dress I made with the same neckline, the neck band itself is not quite right but not wrong enough to be a problem. Unfortunately the weekend at the coast turned out to be overcast and not enticing for swimming. I'll have to hope that another swimming opportunity arises in the next decade so I can try them out.

Halt! Who goes wear?

There's a particular kind of halter neckline that is 'in' at the moment that I really like. (Someone tell me if there's a more specific name for it – 'sleeveless raglan' just confuses people.) It's popularity, however, does not appear to have crossed into the commercial patternmaking world (leastways, not since the 70s. Again, if you know something please tell me.)

I've bought a few dresses and tops in this style but not as many as I would like. Then I found some lovely red and black paisley chiffon that I thought would work well for one. I gave up looking for a pattern and pulled a dress out of my wardrobe and took a pattern from it.

Side note: I bought this dress in New Zealand in the couple of hours we had to kill before catching the plane home. New Zealand had a completely different set of dress shops from what we have in Australia which took me by surprise. This puts me in the position of having my most favourite clothing chain closed down and my second most favourite is in another country.

Really, most of the pattern is pretty straight forward. The only difficulty comes from the neck band. I don't think I was able to get the shape quite right by tracing an already made up dress but it will do. The finished product does feel a little tight at the front while sitting a little too loose at the back, but I'm not sure how to change that.

Before jumping in with my nice (and expensive) chiffon I decided to make a mock-up from something cheap but with the intention of being able to wear it too. I found the perfect fabric on the Spotlight sale table. It's awful! So synthetic it feels like plastic and it has a camouflage print with gold specks so it's all shiny. I was very pleased with it – and only $3 a metre.

The dress was cut and sewed quite quickly. I think something went wrong when I was making the skirt patterns as I ended up with one front, two side fronts, two side backs and two backs but the front and sides were enough to get around me. I wondered if I had just traced a side panel twice but the original dress definitely has all those panels. Still, after leaving out the back panels I've got a dress that fits and that's what matters.