Burdastyle 07/2019 112 Swimsuit

 As the weather starts heating up my thoughts move to summer makes.  I have quite the collection of swimwear fabric so I like to add a new suit each season.  This year I had my eye on Burdastyle 07/2019 112.  There are very few reviews of this pattern which seems to be the case with a lot of Burdastyle patterns.  Do we all just buy these patterns for the pictures or am I just looking in the wrong place?  Anyway, the reviews I did find seemed to be all positive and this pattern just looked good on everyone.

I had a piece of Liberty swim that I bought in 2017 as a birthday present to myself.  I loved the print and really just had to have it.  The problem I have with purchases like this though, is I am terrified of cutting into it so I didn't make it up.  I think I had the Burdastyle pattern earmarked since the pattern came out and it took a couple of summers before I decided use my Liberty for this suit.  Because of my worries with the pattern though, I decided I needed to make it up with some fabric I cared a little less about.

The fabric I chose for my test version was left over from a suit I made way back in 2015 and I had originally purchased from Spandex House.  I love the print but it is extremely loud and quite different to what I would choose now.  It was perfect for a wearable trial.

With Burdastyle patterns, I tend to span two sizes; my hips being a size larger than my bust and waist so when I traced out my pattern this is exactly what I did.

Because I didn't want to invest too much money in a suit, I wasn't sure would fit, I tried to use fabric and notions from my stash.  I had a piece of plain nylon lycra in blue that wasn't a perfect match colour wise but wasn't a bad match so this became my bodice lining. The bodice has a cut on tie that requires a fabric that is pleasing to the eye because it is visible when worn.  The lower body of the suit isn't visible so regular swim lining was fine to use.  I find it is quite difficult to source so when I find suitable fabrics in my travels I make sure to snap them up.  

I already had a swim hook in my stash and I had bought a bulk lot of rubber swim elastic earlier in the year with this project in mind.  I also had swim cups in my stash because I tend to raid these from bras before I thrown them out so had quite a good collection of shaped foam to choose from.  The pattern didn't actually stipulate swim cups but I tend to put them in all of my suits.

I did need to do a bit of fitting and unpicking with this pattern because I found it too loose under the arms and around the back.  I ended up removing 1.5cm from each side grading out to nothing.  I have since altered my paper pattern to reflect this.  I also found that the crotch width was narrower than I am used to so I increased this on my paper pattern as well for future versions.

To construct the suit, I mainly used my overlocker.   I added a narrow strip of elastic under the cutout and reduced the size of it slightly because I just found it too big for my liking. I also added a narrow piece of swim elastic to the front v seam to stop it stretching out.  My suits are used for swimming and not just a bit of beach lounging so I wanted to make sure there really are no wardrobe malfunctions.  The elastic was attached with my overlocker and then topstitched with a narrow zig zag stitch on my sewing machine.

Now like most sewists, I really am not comfortable photographing my swimwear worn and doing it on a beach load of people is just a bit much so I tend to try to visit very early or very late.  These photos were taken at 8 o'clock in the morning and I thought I would have the beach to myself.  Turns out I did not!  I had one elderly man drop his towel right beside my tripod and then ask me what sort of shot I was trying to get.  When I moved further down the beach, a lady wandered out of her holiday home with a cup of coffee and casually sat on a rock watching the proceedings.  At this point I just threw my hands in the air and took the photos anyway.  After all, I am never going to see these people again.  In the first photo if you zoom right in you can just spot the coffee drinker.  I doubt she realises that her photograph is going out to the sewing world.