Bramblestitches: Toddler tankini

Olga needs a swim suit, and I'm not about to go spend $30 or more for a quarter yard of fabric sewn into some mini-hussy bikini with Dora all over it. She's still in diapers, too, so I would also need a swim diaper. But I can sew, right? Why not make Olga a swimsuit? And why not make myself one, while I'm at it?

I did a little fabric shopping, and came up with a couple of wonderful swimwear fabrics from Fabric.com, and then I ordered some swimsuit lining, fold over elastic, and findings from Fabric Depot. I also ordered some white PUL (that's polyurethane laminated fabric, a waterproofed fabric very popular in the cloth diapering world) from Sherrie Daigle, who runs the Sewing Supply Co-Op. I used Wild Ginger's Child's Play pattern software to draft a halter-style top, and I'll use Catharine's Chloe Toes diaper pattern to make a swim diaper.

Using just the swimsuit lining fabric and my printed out pattern, I basted together a muslin of the top. Olga has a toddler tummy, so I knew I would have to lengthen the center front a little bit. The muslin allowed me to see about how much. I lengthened the center front about 1.5 inches and tapered to nothing at the side seams. I left the back unchanged. I pulled out my basting stitches, cut a new front, and sewed it to the back for the swimsuit lining. Then I cut the front and back out of the swim suit fabric and sewed the side seams together. I decided it would look really cute with a contrasting ruffle at the bottom edge, so I cut a strip of fabric about 3 inches wide and 30 inches long (I eyeballed the length), sewed the two short ends together, and gathered one long edge with long basting stitches. I pinned it to the bottom edge of the swimsuit, fiddled with the gathers until I was pleased, then basted it on. To attach the lining, I pinned the lining and the swimsuit with right sides of the fabric facing each other and the ruffle sanwiched in the middle, then stitched around the bottom edge. When I flipped it inside out, the seam was hidden.

I should have taken more construction photos. To bind the edges, I used FOE (that's fold-over elastic). First I bound the top front edge. Then I decided I didn't want this to be a halter top, I wanted the straps to cross in the back, and be adjustable. So I figured out about how long to make the straps, then starting at the front side edge, sewed the FOE all the way around the back of the swimsuit and back around to the top edge, leaving enough FOE "tail" to make the other strap, like the photo above.

To make these straps adjustable, I used some findings, which I purchased at Fabric Depot (link above). These are 3/8" rings and sliders. I also have a little scrap of FOE about 3 inches long.

I cut my FOE scrap in half, so I had two 1.5" peices. The length isn't important, but I needed a little extra to hold onto while sewing. I folded the FOE in half along the fold line, then threaded it thru one of the rings, and pinned it in place on the back of the swim suit where I wanted my straps.