Striped Cottesloe
Pattern: Cottesloe Swimsuit by Megan Nielsen Patterns
Fabric: Swim lycra from Raspberry Creek Fabrics
Sewn up: Summer 2019
You know when you have a task that you keep putting off even though it hangs over you every day like a dark cloud, and then when you finally do it it takes under five minutes and you wonder why you didn’t just do it all those weeks ago? On a slightly different timescale, that was me with this swimsuit!
My family had a trip to the south of France planned for the end of summer, and I got very excited this past spring when I realized that I could make my dream swimsuit in time for it. At the time I had one RTW swimsuit, and it a) had been my only swimsuit for the past 5 years, b) didn't fit very well, and c) had an ill-placed rip in the lining that caused wires to poke into my skin. I was ready for an upgrade!
I ordered all my swim gear in May – different prints of swim lycra, lining, various elastics, swim foam, rings, wires - thinking I would make the Sophie from Closet Case Patterns. I watched her amazing online course in one sitting, and cut and sewed up most of a muslin, which was looking pretty swimsuit-like! But the elastic insertion* step intimidated me, and I hit pause.
(*Note for the non-swimsuit-sewers out there, to get a swimsuit to hug your body in the way that swimsuits do, you have to line every edge – that includes neckline, arm holes, leg holes, waistband, and rib-cage-band – with elastic that’s a slightly shorter width than the fabric, so everything gets squeezed in a bit and sits nice and tight against your skin.)
Then the Cottesloe Swimsuit pattern started showing up everywhere on my Instagram feed, and I thought I could start with this simpler sew instead – no wires, no rings. I traced the pattern and ordered some new sizes of elastic. But somehow, whenever I had a window to sew, I always picked up a different project instead. (See: the many other things I sewed this summer while delaying progress on my swimsuit! Ogden, Eucalypt, Boxy, Inari, Yanta, Misty, plus a few others I have yet to post, including a sequined dress...)
I had of course told everyone I knew I was making a swimsuit, and so as the summer passed my lovely friends kept asking me how my swimsuit was going, and I would sheepishly have to answer that we were on a break / I was focusing on other things.
Suddenly it was September, almost time to leave the country, and no swimsuit! So the weekend before my departure, I put the Milk Carton Kids on repeat and took it bird by bird. I test-stitched different zig-zag lengths and widths. I stripe-matched my pattern pieces. I cut out all my stripes, lining, and elastics, then sewed foam cups to lining, lining to stripes, stripes to elastic, and more elastic, and more elastic. And a real-live swimsuit was forming in my hands! I felt a skip in my step / needle.
And when I finished, I tried it on, and felt… crushed! This was one of my lowest sewing lows yet – I think anyone who likes to make things can relate to the feeling of working so hard on something you’re so excited about, and it just doesn’t materialize how you want. In this case, there were two culprits: 1) I had chosen to make the contrasting bands out of the dark purple stripe, and it just felt heavy and wrong against the lighter, brighter colors of the rest; and 2) the waistband was just. too. tight. (The top is honestly too tight overall but still wearable, but the waistband was digging into my sides and made me feel constricted and uncomfortable).
I had a good sulk and gave it a breather overnight – then decided that the color I could live with, but a digging-in waistband I couldn’t. So I seam-ripped off all the purple, recut the waistband with an extra two inches of length, and pieced together enough green striped scraps to make new bands. And when I finished again, I felt… pretty good! 1) I had completed a swimsuit (finally!) and 2) the adjustments I made felt like they had been the right call – which I find can have a real counteracting effect on the creative despair associated with needing the adjustments in the first place. (“When you solve a problem, you think you’re in heaven” is one of my favorite quotes, from graphic designer Paul Rand. I feel like he gets me / I get him on this!)
Removing the wrong-feeling purple band so I could replace it with a green one!
My first afternoon in France was a beautifully breezy and sunny one, so I suited up and jumped in the pool. My mom called to me asking me how the swimsuit was working out. My answer was that it had neither fallen off, nor apart, so I considered it a success! It’s totally a real swimsuit, and I wore it every day on my trip. My twin sister also made the Cottesloe in an amazing camo print from Spoonflower, so here is a pic of us in our sort-of-matching suits. 🙂
For now, I still have only one swimsuit – this one. But it’s a fit and comfort improvement from the previous one, and as with all me-mades, gives me feelings of pride and joy to wear, all the more so since this one and I had some ups and downs together. I think it makes sense to have been intimidated by this project (foam! elastic! skintight midriff-bearing garment!), and I also think that same paralysis wouldn’t happen again on my next swimsuit – and hopefully not to the same extent on my next slightly-scary non-swimsuit project, sewing or otherwise.
~ First photo by my sister Katherine, second by my brother who insisted that no photo credit was needed, which made us all laugh around the pool.
Drawing process reel: kitchen table photo, pencil sketch, digital drawing.
