When the Sophie Swimsuit meets the Bombshell Swimsuit, magical things can happen…

Underwire.

And boning.

And two bikini bottoms.

Man, am I now totally fitted out for the 10 or so times I swim each year!!

Last year, I proudly made my first foray into swimsuit sewing with the Bombshell Swimsuit by Closet Case Patterns. But, thanks to my failure to take into account the size of my thighs and the bizarrely thick lycra I used, that swimsuit was always a bit tight.

Let’s just say it is a testament to the solid construction of that Bombshell swimsuit that it is still in one-piece. You should see how hard I have to tug and pull to get it off once it’s dripping wet!!

Enter: The Sophie Swimsuit

So I was eager to have a swimsuit which was, you know, the right size.

A little more comfy. A little more practical.

And whilst I have always preferred the look of a one-piece swimsuit, it was a bit of a light bulb moment when I realised that a high-waisted bottom, combined with a long line bikini top would look almost the same…

But still, while a swimsuit was vaguely at the back of my mind, there were plenty of other things to sew too. Like always!

But then the Sewing Swimwear episode of the Love to Sew podcast fed me a big ol’ dose of inspiration.

Or, should I say, swim-spiration!!

(OK, OK,  I’m done with the not-quite-puns)

When I saw all the beautiful photos of Caroline and Helen looking so comfortable in their skin in their lovely swimsuits, I thought, “I want a swimsuit that makes me feel the way that they look”.

Now back to school

And, on another note, I had started to think about exploring bra-making (speaking of which the 2018 #BRAugust challenge by @tailormadeshop is just starting up on instagram at the moment!).

The combination of my huuuge wardrobe and fabric stash has recently got me thinking that it might be better to drive my sewing obsession towards smaller garments. Plus, both swimwear and lingerie have the advantage that, unlike most of my sewing, you can actually sew beautiful garments for less than you would buy them. Cuz the prices of RTW in these areas are just nutso!!!!

So, when a 30% off promotion for Closet Case’s “Sew Your Dream Swimsuit” workshop landed in my inbox, I thought, why not? It would be a preliminary chance to dip my toes in techniques relevant to bra-making. Plus, I was contemplating buying the pattern anyway, so my rationale was that when you subtract the cost of the pattern from the price of the discounted course, I’m really only paying about 20 bucks extra to do the course.

And so, off I went…

Time to sew the Sophie Swimsuit from Closet Case Patterns.

Sew Your Dream Swimsuit Workshop

I really enjoyed the Closet Case “Sew Your Dream Swimsuit” workshop.

Full disclosure, I’m not actually hugely into online classes. But, just like when I did the Closet Case Sew Your Dream Jeans course, I really did enjoy the process of sewing something while following a course. The way that it can be broken down in bite sized chunks is enjoyable. It’s also useful for a person like me who will sit at the sewing machine for hours and forget to eat or pee….

Those lessons forced me to take lovely little tea breaks where I moved around a bit while Heather Lou told me what to do next!

I found that I perhaps didn’t learn as much that was new to me with this course, compared to the Sew Your Dream Jeans course. But, I still got some important things out of it which definitely made it worth the price.

The loooong lesson on the most complex stage of actually attaching the channelling and inserting underwiring, thus creating what amounts to a bra, was absolutely invaluable. For me that one lesson alone was worth the course cost.  It totally demystified something that I never would have imagined I could even do!

The other lesson which I found fantastic was the one actually walking you through all the different supplies and materials that go into a swimsuit. The different properties of the fabrics you need at different parts of the bikini top were pretty daunting to me at first, as a bra-making newbie. Seeing everything on screen was a great way to present this complex information. It really gave me an, ok, I get it, I can find this stuff, I can do this, kind of moment.

The Ins and Outs of my Sophie Swimsuit

Following the size charts, I cut out the bikini top in a size 10 with a cup 4 size. The bikini bottoms are a size 12.

The Sophie Swimsuit pattern recommends starting out by making a test cup.

This is a great idea because you get a really satisfying feeling from making something a bit out-of-the-ordinary (for me, at least), right of the bat. When internet-stalking the Sophie Swimsuit in preparation for this project,  I saw a great tip on the Tessuti blog – make your test cup before you cut out any other pieces. If you have adjustments to make to the cup size, you will have to re-cut all your other cup pieces anyway. Gold!!

Instead of using traditional cup sizes A, B, C, DD etc, the Sophie Swimsuit is designed around the number of inches difference between your under bust and full bust measurements. So, for me, a 4 inch difference meant a cup size 4. I was a little surprised by this because I am very small-chested (A cups all the way), so I thought the cup size 4 was going to be huge.

In all honesty, it kind of was. I could definitely have gone down a cup size. But I’m sure this is just because everyone’s “inches” are distributed very differently and there’s no way to make it work for everyone!

That’s what the test cup is for, right?

And speaking of cup-related things, I discovered in the course of sewing this Sophie Swimsuit bikini top that the underwire size I’ve been wearing in most of my bras is, ummm, wrong! This bikini top used an underwire one size up than I would usually wear and it feels just great. After 5 years sewing, I feel that I know my body pretty well but this project pushed me to explore certain fitting/shaping needs that I’ve largely overlooked.

Is there such a thing as too much shape?

I ended up doing quite a lot of shape changing to my foam cup for my Sophie Swimsuit. The Sew Your Dream Swimsuit workshop walks you through exactly how to do this.  But, unlike pants-fitting, I found it really simple and enjoyable to do. I think it’s cuz the pieces in question are so small. It is really fast to re-shape them and whip up a new cup to see how it fits.

Here’s an idea of how I revised the shape of the foam cup:

A word of warning though. I kind of fell victim to a desire to “over-fit” the cup. I’ve realised in the process of sewing this Sophie Swimsuit that, well, my girls are kind of “oddly-shaped” (as though there is actually a ‘normal’ shape!!)  – I’m sure I’m not alone here!

So I found that as I got the fit more and more precise to the actual shape of my body, the look of the cups started to be less and less aesthetically pleasing. Which made me realise that I actually preferred the cups to be a little bigger than I needed but cute and round, rather than perfectly fitting, but, ummm, kind of cone-shaped.

What? Too much information?

Sewing a test cup is also a great idea because it gives you a bit of practice of the technique of sewing the ‘cut and sew’ foam together by zig-zagging across where two pieces butt up against each other. This is, again, an oddly satisfying little step. A little tip: Isince I used a dark coloured foam,  it was really hard to see the line I was trying to zig zag across. Marking the join line with chalk was invaluable.

Long-line Sophie Swimsuit Bikini Top

If you are interested in making your Sophie swimsuit bikini top a long-line one, like this, there are free extra pattern pieces and a blog post about how to do so.

While it’s not a complicated process, I have to admit that I found inserting the channelling and the boning of the long-line Sophie bikini top to be the most difficult step in the entire process. Maybe I was just tired as it was the end of the day. But for me, it was even harder than installing the underwire channelling.

First, I found that just inserting boning along the side seam, as the Closet Case tutorial recommends, wasn’t enough. My swim suit was still bunching up underneath the cups. So I inserted an additional small boning channel under each cup, where the bridge meets the band (look at me go, with all the bra-making lingo…)

What I found really difficult was top stitching all of the boning channels in place. They really need to be top stitched right at the edge of the channel, so you don’t block the channel you are creating. I tried to do it from the right side so that I could ensure that it still looked pretty, but I just couldn’t catch the channelling accurately that way. And then my stitches which didn’t actually catch the channelling at all were really hard to unpick in my lycra. So I had to resort to stitching from the wrong side.

In the end, it looks a bit messy, but I’m still proud.

The other challenge the long-ling bikini top version of the Sophie Swimsuit poses is that you need a different form of closure because the swim suit is wider at the centre back. I wasn’t really satisfied with any of the suggested options in the Closet Case tutorial. So, I was totally over the moon when I found these 50mm swimwear closers in silver and gold! For me, it really makes the project!

Imagine if I’d actually managed to properly centre it!!

Wires and plastic and metal: All the hardware

Speaking of supplies, you will need quite a bit of hardware and speciality products for a long-line Sophie Swimsuit. Or any Sophie Swimsuit, for that matter.

When searching around online, the only Europe-based supplier I found where I could get everything I needed was B-wear, a Sweden-based supplier of lingerie and swimwear supplies. I can highly recommend them! They really have everything you will need. I felt super professional because I managed to get everything I needed in coordinating colours – cut and sew foam, 15 denier for the bridge, power mesh (which I used to line the band and the wings of the bikini top).

B-wear were quite busy so it did take a little time to ship (but still with the time frames stated on their website), but I am just so happy with all my supplies!

They were even patient with me when I was a pain-in-the-butt customer (accidentally forgetting items leading to the need to make a second order and then  wanting to swap the colour of something in the order – sorry Bodil!)

This swimsuit fabric is not for sewing…

But while I would unreservedly recommend B-wear for all your specialty supplies, one thing I would not recommend is this damn lurex swimsuit fabric!!

It was a nightmare which almost ruined my Sophie Swimsuit.

I found it at Pretty Mercerie and thought it would work nicely with the colour blocking properties of the Sophie Swimsuit. What’s more, it coordinated with the navy swimsuit lycra I already had in my stash. I somehow feel less guilty about buying new fabric if I can also use up a stash fabric in the same project!

While it looks pretty, the fabric is just too light and delicate to be used as a swimsuit fabric. It couldn’t actually handle being sewn! Even though I was using a stretch needle, at the final step of top-stitching the elastic on my Sophie bikini bottoms, the fabric started to run. Since it’s made out of 60% nylon, the run then started to grow and grow, just like in a pair of stockings.

So, at the final step, just as I was finishing everything, my brand new bikini bottoms were ruined! The only choice was making a new bikini bottom. Thanks goodness I had fabric to spare this time…

Bombshell vs. Sophie High Waisted Bikini Bottoms

But, you know, every problem is an opportunity in disguise, right?

Before sewing this swimsuit, I had been a bit in two minds as to whether to make the Sophie bikini bottom or the bikini bottom from the Bombshell swimsuit. I really love the look of the ruching in the Bombshell, but I loved the colour-block effect from the Sophie swimsuit.

In the end, colour-blocking won out and I went for Sophie.

But, when the fabric fail messed me up, I decided that, for my second attempt at making a bikini bottom, I would revert to the Bombshell bikini bottom.

Now, all’s well that ends well, because I think I prefer the shape and look of the Bombshell high waisted bikini bottom on my body, compared to the Sophie swimsuit bikini bottom. The Bombshell waist came up slightly higher, contributing more to the “almost a one piece” vibe I was going for. Plus, I found the point at which the leg is cut to be more flattering on my body.

So, I thought I would include a few pics side-by-side, in case anyone else is trying to decide whether to use the Sophie swimsuit high-waisted bikini bottoms or the Bombshell high-waisted bikini bottoms!!

The Sophie Swimsuit Weekender

So, the Sophie Swimsuit long-line bikini top combined with the Bombshell high-waisted bikini bottom turns out to be my dream swimsuit combination.

Who would have thunk it?

And, except for my bikini bottom fabric snafu, I had an immensely enjoyable weekend happily sewing my way through the Sew Your Dream Swimsuit workshop and coming up with this swimsuit at the end. Hubby and the toddler were away and this was the first entire weekend alone to sew that I’ve ever had!!!

I have actually worn this at the beach already. I am super pleased that this bikini top handled running up and down with a three year old, including jumping through waves while carrying him (because, of course, that turned out to be his favourite beach activity), with aplomb! Of course, I am small-busted so I don’t really have the same perspective as someone who requires more support, but this is definitely the most supportive swimsuit I’ve ever worn.

But, a final bit of real talk?

But, before signing off, I feel like I would be dishonest to not mention that I am way outside my comfort zone in posting these pics.

When I posted photos of my Bombshell Swimsuit last year, it was just after I’d lost a bit of weight. I felt happy with where my body was at. At the moment, I’ve been steadily putting on weight and the opposite is kind of true.

One thing I love about the sewing community is the real sense of body positivity. And when I see other people, of all shapes and sizes, posting their swimsuit photos, I love it.

I am genuinely inspired by it.

I think people look beautiful and healthy and happy at so many shapes and sizes.

But, in a way, that body positive dynamic, actually makes me feel even more guilty about the fact that I don’t feel that OK about these photos. I don’t like looking at them. I think “what if someone I work with ever discovers this blog one day…”.

A flip side to body positivity is that when I don’t feel positive about my own body, it can actually reinforce the mental spiral: now, it’s not only the negative thought that “there’s something wrong with my body” but also “there’s something wrong with my head and I’m a vain and superficial idiot if I can’t feel comfortable in my own skin like all these other beautiful people of all shapes and sizes”.

But, I’m posting this anyway, because even if I feel guilty that I can’t always have the right mindset to feel good about where my body is right now, I firmly believe that decades of being saturated by unrealistic images of women is precisely why I feel this way.

And one thing that is within my power is to try to counteract that is sharing images of a realistic woman!

In her Sophie swimsuit!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh and, finally, a little P.S! If you like to get your blog hits through Bloglovin’, feel free to follow me over there: you can find me here. And you can find me on Instagram here.