Vernazza Two Piece

 My love of the two piece swim suit remains strong and mostly from a practical perspective.  I really don't enjoy parading around the beach with a lot of skin on display and certainly don't like the layers of sunscreen I need to apply to make sure that skin doesn't turn a nasty shade of red.  I do however like that I can leave my swimwear on all day under other clothing so I can swim on a whim while on our annual camping holiday to the beach.  A one piece is just plain difficult to wear.

As soon as the Vernazza Two Piece was released that it would find it's way into my wardrobe at some point and this year is that year.  A lovely piece of Liberty swim lycra was the push I needed to make it.  Quite unlike me, I didn't make a wearable muslin for this one, and just dove in (pun intended) and made it up.  I chose a size medium for the top and large for the bottoms as per my measurements.  I had my lining already in my stash, thankfully but had to source swim elastic which under the current COVID shipping issues was easier said than done.  Nellie Jones came to the rescue here and a few days after I placed my order, I was ready to start sewing it up.

I found the instructions for making this just a tad unusual.  I have made quite a few suits before, and sewing the elastic in and turning the neck edge just seemed odd.  I opted to turn the front tie section stopping at the elastic notch then clipping it and turning before stay stitching my lining to my front. I then just overlocked my elastic directly to the right side of the lining.  I then folded the fabric and elastic in on itself and topstitched from the outside using a straight stitch.  I really don't like the look of zig zag stitching on my swim suits.  It automatically makes them look a bit made at home.  I won't say homemade because that implies inferior which I am not implying a zig zag stitch is.  I opted instead to put a woolly nylon in my bobbin and use a slightly longer top stitch, stretching as I stitched.  This in my experience prevents broken stitching.

The pattern doesn't directly instruct you to include elastic in the band around the bottom of the top but does say this can be an option.  If you should wish to do this, it suggests threading it through after the fact.  I didn't do this either.  My solution was to cut a 2cm wide swim elastic the same length as the band and include this in the seam as I stitched it.  This worked great.  I pattern also doesn't mention foam cups in the top and this is something I have also come to include in all my suits.  New Zealand sea water can be notoriously cold.  Need I say more!  I had a couple of pairs of swim cups I had pulled out of a crop top that I wasn't going to use.  I always save these if I find them because they can be quite rare.

Now, the bottoms I treated to the same treatment.  Using the swim elastic, I measured my waistband and cut my elastic the same length.  I included this in the waist seam once again after shortening the rise approximately 3cm.

The suit turned out really lovely but, I am yet to trial it properly in water.  I am pretty convinced it is a size too large and am concerned that it will grow when it is submerged.  This one might be a beach only suit or worn on my SUP.  Hmm maybe I need to make another one!