Sunday, July 23, 2017

High-Waisted Bikini

Before

After


I liked this swimsuit as a one-piece, but it was weirdly short on me. It had a sort of retro look to it, so I thought it would be a good candidate for turning into a high-wasted bikini. Over most of the course of spring and summer, I was working intermittently on this very frustrating project, making many mistakes along the way. I had no idea that sewing elastic fabric could be so hard!

I post the finished product here for 2 reasons: 1) It looks OK in pictures, so I can at least pretend it was a success, and 2) to beg for help! Fellow refashioners, what are your tips for sewing elastic? No matter what I tried (and you can see all the gory details in my full blog post), all I ended up with was a stretched-out, puckery mess! It seems inevitable that I'm going to disassemble the whole project and try again, so I could certainly use suggestions as to how to do it better next time.

Eternal thanks,
The Unfashionista

6 comments:

Mommy-Wommy said...

Valarie - elastic is super hard to sew. I haven't figured it out, but I found an alternative: Fold Over Elastic. Google it to see all about it. I put it over the raw edge and sew with a regular stitch. I've made a bunch of bathing suits with it and it works pretty great. Works for underwear too. I'm not sure why it works, but you can sew it in one pass. One side is a bit wider than the other, so just put it on the bottom and sew through all the layers. My Joanne and Walmart carry the basic colors. Give it a try.

RanchHouse said...

WOW! The suit is great design. The only clues I have are specific needle and specific thread. I will be following this as I have several suits in line to work on. Thanks for starting this discussion.

I Can Work With That said...

It's a great idea. Is is picking? Maybe it will smooth out when it's on your body?
Chickie

Kathy W. - One Brown Mom said...

I agree with the FOE suggestion. You can find it in the cloth diaper sewing section at JoAnn Fabrics. It comes in lots of bright fun colors.

E said...

A walking foot helps with sewing elastics. It doesn't fix the problem every time, but it's worth a try.

TheRefashStash said...

What a genius idea! I have also had better luck using a walking foot with jersey knits and elastics.

-TheRefashStash