Swimwear!

I spend a lot of time during the summer at the pool, and I like to vary which suits I wear each day.  I also wear rash guards so that adds more variety to my swim wardrobe.  The 3 suits I wear the most are my 2 versions of Jalie 3023, in blue (blogged here) and red polka dots (blogged here).  I also wear this one, which is a Jalie 3023 skirted bottom and a Jalie 2563 sport bra top.  

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I love tankinis and wanted to make a new one in a different style.  I wound up copying a RTW suit I had that fit well, but whose elastic was showing its age and whose straps were stretching out.  For the top front, I copied the RTW suit, and for the back I used Jalie 3023 raising up the back to eliminate the back band.  I cut the straps extra-long so that I could decide later if I wanted them to cross in the back or not. 

The bikini bottoms I copied directly from my RTW suit, and once I tried it on, it was a little blousy on the back (I’ve never had that problem before!) and I removed some of the length between the legs by taking an extra large seam at the crotch.  There is still a little bit of extra fabric but it is acceptable as is. (Sorry: no photos of the bottoms). The fabric was a printed spandex from SpandexWorld.com that I bought quite a while ago and had been saving for something special.

As I said before, I wear rash guards at the pool since I don’t want to tan/age prematurely.  My current collection of rash guards, most of which were purchased from Land’s End, are starting to wear out.  The fabric in several spots have worn thin and they need to be replaced.  I have made one rash guard for myself using Jalie 2566, (blogged here).  Searching on Pinterest for some rash guard inspiration, I noticed that most of the ones I liked had raglan sleeves.  I owned Jalie 3245, the raglan tee and tank pattern but had only made the tank.  I traced off a size V (2 sizes smaller than I would normally) and raised the neckline up to be much higher for a rash guard.  For the sleeve and back, I used the size FF neckline.  The front needed to be raised up even higher than the FF level.   I did a quick muslin and was happy with the fit.  Instead of doing Jalie’s method for the neck binding (which is quite clever) I cut a 2” wide band and folded it in half lengthwise, for a Renfrew-style neck binding.  I also made the sleeves full length. 

The fabric is a very pretty navy background with dark turquoise rose and leaves.  I purchased it from Hancock Fabrics before they closed their doors for good (sniff sniff).  I absolutely love how it turned out!

(the sleeves are all twisted because I was already wet when it put this on!) 

More Red...just not for me

After celebrating an excellent Fourth of July, both of my daughters realized the wisdom in my words "Reapply sunscreen!"  My eldest had been complaining about her current rash guard being too small and didn't want to wear it.  (tsk tsk)
I had her search through my spandex stash to find something she liked which I could make into a rash guard and bikini bottoms.  She chose the red polka dots which I used for my most recent Jalie 3023:

 

I had only purchased 1 yard of the polka dots so there wasn't enough to make an entire rash guard from it, but I was able to make the bottoms of Jalie 2447 in size M.

 

 

 

The bottoms come in either a high or normal waist version.  From previous experience I knew that the high waist version is quite high...about belly-button high.  I cut the high waist anyway knowing that I could trim it down before adding the elastic.  My eldest thought that the high waist was indeed too high and I trimmed it down 1.25" before adding the elastic.   After finishing the briefs, I made a solid red rash guard for her from Jalie 2566 with a raised neckline and lengthened sleeves.   I had enough polka dot scraps to make the neck band and sleeve bands (Renfrew-style) to up the style factor.

 

 



 I topstitched the seam allowances down using a chain-stitch on my coverstitch machine.

 

So there you go...more red threads.  If this keeps up I will soon need a new huge spool of red thread!  

 



Swim Shorts! Jalie 3351

I loved Jalie's new pattern releases.  The first one that made me say "Oooh!" was #3351, the swim shorts. 

 

Jalie 3351

I am pretty conservative when it comes to swimwear.  I always wear a rash guard and typically wear a swim skirt.  While living in India for 3 years conservative dressing was the norm and anything very revealing was scandalous.  I got used to people staring at me no matter what I wore, so it was just better and less stressful/annoying for me to be covered up.  Also, when we first arrived in India, my girls were 2.5 and 4.5 years old; I could not rely on them to get sunscreen on my back so a rash guard was really necessary.

I made the swim short in boring black milliskin matte from Spandex World.   I cut a size X at the waist and a Y at the hip.  I made the shorts as designed with the attached brief.  The leg opening of the brief is very modest and quite low cut.  Like all Jalie patterns I have made, the drafting is excellent.  I had only one issue with the instructions.  The final step didn't mention how to attach the brief to the shorts and waistband.  Strangely, the French version of the instructions didn't mention how to attach the shorts...I emailed Jalie and got a response the next morning:

 

Hi Meigan,

 

You attach the briefs at figure 31 (very last step, after the waistband is attached to the shorts):

Pin wrong side of shorts to waistband facing, at the seam allowance, matching centers and sides (fig. 31). Stitch, stretching the band as you sew.

There is indeed a small mistake on fig. 31 (on the label at the bottom of the shorts). It should be like this:

Thanks for pointing it out! 

 

Have a great day,

Emilie FournierJalie Patterns Inc.

Now, the diagram on my pattern looked just like the one she sent me, but she didn't answer my question about the assembly.  EDIT: I email again before writing this blog post and she agreed that there was a mistake in the instructions and has made a note on the website. (Side note: I still think their errata on the website is incomplete and there is a missing step in their instructions.  I have sent another email and I am awaiting a response.)

****UPDATE****7/3/2014
I just received a response from Emilie at Jalie Patterns.  She realized that they were in fact missing a step between figure 30 & fig. 31.  She has updated the .pdf instructions.  Here is the link:
http://www.jalie.com/product_printing_guide/3351.pdf
 

Rather than waiting for an answer to my original enquiry, I sewed what made sense to me.  I basted the shorts and briefs together with a zig-zag stitch.  Then I attached the waistband to them both.  Ta Da!

 

Front view (photo is lightened so you can see the black)

Pocket!

 

I made the rash guard last summer.  I made it using the Jalie 2566 tee shirt pattern.  I cut at least one size smaller than I would have for a tee shirt, and raised the neckline, added a neck band and lengthened the sleeve.   It was an easy tweak to change the pattern from a tee to a rash guard. 

 

I wore the shorts swimming before writing up this post, because I wanted to give a complete and thorough review. 

 

First of all: elastic that is comfortable when you are in your sewing room and dry is a little too loose when swimming.  I did not follow Jalie's elastic lengths and measured what was comfortable on my waist instead.  Well...it's a little loose.  Not falling off in the water loose, but "I'd be happier if it were a little more snug."

Second, the shorts stayed soaking wet for a very long time. There is a lot of fabric that holds a lot of water.  Granted, my fabric is not super thin, so it's likely to be wetter and heavier than a thinner fabric, but I was noticeably wetter longer than normal when wearing a swim skirt.  For my next iterations, I may do something fancy and omit the pockets, and also use thinner spandex but for the sake of sharing knowledge, it's something to consider. 

 

Here are some more photos:

Side view

And because we are all friends, here is what I meant about the briefs being very modest and low cut around the legs:

 

 

So in summary, they look great, they feel good.  The length of the shorts was very good.  The instructions are missing a tiny bit of info, and consider the weight of the fabric when wet.  I will get some good wear out of these swim shorts and will make more pairs in the future.  Another winner from Jalie.