Gracious Threads Swimwear

(am going to ignore the very long time of not posting again... seems to be the recurring theme of this blog!)

I've had some trouble finding ready-to-wear swimsuits for Abigail. She is wearing size 5 or 6 for length, but everything sags, gapes, or falls off her very slim body! A while ago I measured her for a pattern and realized she has the same measurement for chest, waist and hips - which would be why everything slides off... So sewing it is (though why that is my last resort, I'm not sure! lol)

I found a really cheap rasher shirt at a (ahem) big box store for $7 and it was SPF50 fabric, so figured I couldn't sew for that. That was my starting point for a couple of swim sets.

First is the  skirted bottom, made from Gracious Threads' Eclipse Tankini set. I made size 3. The tankini top has the peplum in the pattern, so I just took the waist cutting line from the size down and sandwiched the skirt between the waistband and the bottoms - worked perfectly!

Here's something fun I learned the last bottoms that I sewed for myself! You know how the gusset seam of swim bottoms can be enclosed by sandwiching between the front outer and front lining of the suit? The same can be done with the side seams! This is a quick little mini tutorial on how to accomplish this.

It was a bit tricky to show this well so I took a quick video to hopefully make it a bit clearer.

Next up is also a Gracious Threads pattern, the Swim & Surf Shorts. I think this pattern is genius! Perfect for a little girl (or a big one, like me, for that matter!) Swim bottoms with attached shorts. Exactly what she needs for playing in the sand and a little extra coverage from the sun.  I'll update this post to include once they are finished!