Mermaid Sophie Swimsuit

Capping off what turned out to be a bit of a swimsuit week here on the blog with my Mermaid suit!  I had about a metre of this fabric leftover from my Mermaid Leggings, and I knew it needed to be turned into a swimsuit this summer.  Thank goodness for the Sophie Swimsuit pattern!  

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I made the one-piece again, as I was really pleased with how the first one turned out!

I chose to go with the halter straps this time, as sewing the other straps were kind of a pain in the ass... and I'm much happier!  I also ordered more bra foam from Bra Makers Supply and went with black instead of beige.  

On my first suit, I found the back wasn't quite tight enough, so I made sure to pull the elastic a bit tighter on this one and got a much better fit.

To avoid the topstitching on the elastic showing too much, I changed my thread colours to make sure they matched - something Heather suggests in her Sophie Sew-Along Workshop.

One thing I'm not really pleased with is the suuuuper crappy job I did sewing in the underwire channeling.  I didn't include the wire (like with the first one), so I wasn't terribly concerned with fitting the wire in.  However, the way it turned out under the cups really isn't great.  I was having a hard time with the fabric (so slippery!) and had to rip out one of the cups.  At that point I figured that no-one is really looking that closely at my under-boob... so I'm just not going to worry about it.  The suit is still functional!

I found out that Fabricland does in fact carry swimsuit lining, but it's really not that great.  When compared to my first suit (using the fabric from the Sophie kit I ordered) this lining is kind of baggy, and I have to fuss with it a bit when putting on the suit.  Ugh.

Overall, I'm really happy with how this suit looks.  Function however, is another thing.  This isn't at all due to the pattern - I completely take the blame for that.  Well, that and the spandex really didn't work out as well in the water as I was hoping.  I rushed through this suit a bit too, and had I taken my time it might have worked out a bit better.  The fit of the cups also seems to be a bit off, so I might go down a size the next time I make the suit - something that I noticed in the first version as well.  I still have enough of the mermaid fabric that I could make a bikini.... something to think about next year!