Made by a Fabricista: Swimsuits

Happy summer! This is my absolutely favorite season of the year! I love the unscheduled, unplanned downtime that goes hand and hand with summer. I love the extra hours of fun I get to spend with the family! And I love the beach! Last week our family went to Marco Island, Florida and I was so excited to make a handful of swimsuits for my daughter and myself! I used the Megan Nielsen Cottesloe pattern to mix and match a whole new swimsuit wardrobe!




Have you tried swimsuit sewing yet? For some reason, it sounds so intimidating, but it is so simple! Swimsuits take such a little amount of fabric, and they only take a couple of hours to sew!


The Megan Nielsen Cottesloe swimsuit is a new pattern, and as soon as pictures started popping up, I immediately became interested! There are so many different options, it's fun to play around and mix up the suit!


Megan Nielsen included a high rise bottom, low rise bottom, optional waistbands, a sporty bikini top, and then there's also a one piece option. And the one piece option has a low scoop back option with a tie or a higher scoop back! That's a whole lot packed into one pattern!


I stuck with the two piece options, views C and D. My daughter wanted all low rise bottoms and I wanted to try out the high waisted bottoms. We both love them! I made a total of three bikinis, all from one yard cuts of fabric. And I have a couple more bottoms cut out, which is so neat that it barely takes any fabric to sew these up!


To line each of these, I didn't run to the store to grab swimsuit lining. I just used the swimsuit fabric to line it, so each piece has two layers of swimsuit fabric! I'm hoping this will help our suits last, because we play hard in these things!



Fabric Mart has a ton of swim fabric in stock. And amazingly, each of these fabrics is still in stock! I goofed, and cut out each of these cross grain, which wasn't the biggest deal since there's a lot of stretch in both directions. When ordering fabric, my daughter said she wanted vertical stripes, but once it came, we both decided we like the look of horizontal stripes better.



So I'm curious, have you tried your hand at swimsuit sewing?

Here's a quick recap of the fabric and pattern details:
Pattern: Megan Nielsen Cottesloe
Fabrics: Black and White, Red and White, Rainbow Stripe
Modifications: none, other than the red and white top...I omitted the under bust band, so I lengthened the top instead

Thank you Fabric Mart for the great fabric! Teresa