Soooooo I found a swimsuit at Walmart and l really wanted to buy it, but when I showed a picture to my husband, his response was, “so are you gonna make it?” I had never made a swimsuit before and my experiences with knit fabrics could be counted on one hand. I had thought maybe next year I would give it a try… NOPE. His question to me was somehow the green light I needed to give it a try.
This is the idea I was going for:
Finding the pattern
In order to hack the swimsuit pattern to the style I had seen at the store, it needed to be a two-piece with ties at the neck as well as the back. I scoured the interweb and found the Reno Swimsuit by Seamwork. So cute.
How I hacked the pattern
The hack is really quite simple. I made the XS swim top and when cutting the pieces I simply lengthened the necktie pieces by adding 16 inches (40cm) and shortened the backtie pieces to a cut length of 6 ¼ inches (16 cm).
I sewed up the garment per instructions, adding foam cups using this sewalong frome Helen’s Closet.
The only difference is that my neckties are much longer and after adding my shorter backties I folded them under (wrong sides facing) and topstitched at 1.5 inches (4.5cm) from the end. This creates a case on each backtie for each of the neckties to slide through.
Hack it a different size
If you are making a different size (or want to double check your lengths), hold the necktie paper pattern piece on your breast where the swimsuit will be, let it fall over your shoulder and across your back.. Put your finger where you feel your back bone. Add 16 inches to this length. This is your new necktie length.
To get the length of the backties, use a measuring tape and measure from the middle of your side at bra level, to where you feel your back bone.
These measurements don’t need to be exact but I noticed that when my backtie measurement was too long I couldn’t pull the ties tight enough to get the fit I wanted.
To zigzag or not to zigzag?
Instead of the regular zigzag stitch that is commonly used on knit fabric, I opened up my machine manual and set it up for the stretch stitch and started sewing. This was definitely a royal pain to unpick, which I had to, MANY times, but I prefer the look of a straight stitch. I later heard that the stretch stitch is for when you sew a knit fabric but DON’T want it to stretch. Either way, it has worked for my swimsuit, but let me know in the comments if you know much about this stretch stitch. I’m still learning. And I’m very curious.
Happy Sewing!
