{Finished} Closet Case Bombshell Swimsuit

Despite my love of beachin' and poolin' I absolutely hate shopping for swimsuits. I am distinctly two different sizes on the top and bottom so I have to be able to buy tops and bottoms separately. Also, I'm a born cheapskate and the thought of shelling out $80 (easily) for a swimsuit that, let's be honest, uses hardly ANY fabric, just kills my soul every time I go shopping for a new suit.

I have two swimsuits in my closet. One I bought when I was in high school. HIGH SCHOOL! that was ages ago. It sorta, kinda, not really, still fits. It's a bit tight on the bottom because some areas of my body (cough**my hips and ass**cough) have expanded over the years. The other swimsuit I bought while I spent a summer in Hawaii during college. It has a really cool wrap top, but the bottoms are too big because I couldn't buy the top and bottom separately. I was so tempted to switch out sizes in the dressing room, but I couldn't bring myself to do it so I just always look like I have a saggy bottom whenever I wear it (in other words, suuuuuuper sexy!).



When I saw the release of the Bombshell swimsuit last year, I was very intrigued. I definitely wanted to at least try to make one. I bought some fabric and elastic at Michael Levine's last August, but never pulled the trigger on the pattern. Why? I dunno know....

Fast forward to the recent Pattern Parcel package, and after seeing a ton of reviews again I finally bought the pattern. Although I just bought it straight from Heather Lou's website....I guess I just wanted her to have all the proceeds. Anyway, I guess after reading all the reviews I expected this pattern to be easy peasey......well....it wasn't for me. It's not impossible, but I definitely struggled with it.

I first got hung up on the sizing. I didn't have that much extra lining fabric so I didn't want to make a muslin and then find out the sizing was all wrong. So I tried estimating the modifications just based on the front fabric piece. Well, it took me a really long time (probably at least an hour or two) to realize that I needed to look at the front LINING piece to determine the correct size. I kid you not, I looked at the fabric piece and thought, "oh shit, I need to shorten it by 7 INCHES!". Well, my senses finally came to me after I read through the sew-along for maybe the third time and a light bulb went off. Even though I'm only 4'-11", when I measured the LINING pattern piece between the approximate top of the suit to the crotch area, it didn't seem like I needed to shorten the bodice at all!



Cutting all the pattern pieces was a total breeze, but I started having problems when I was pinning the lining to the main fabric. Both fabrics were so delicate and light and kept rolling in or out. It was a bit frustrating. Basting all the back and front seams wasn't a big deal, but then gathering took me a really freaking long time. The entire time I kept thinking, "there is NO WAY anyone else takes this long at gathering....wtf is wrong with me?" So finally after an eternity, all seams were gathered.

Then I made probably the worst decision during the construction of this suit. I decided to serge the gathered pieces. I did however hand baste the ends before serging, but still.....I totally effed up the pieces by serging them. I just really wanted a nice enclosed seam.....but I am not an expert on serging and I had such a difficult time getting the gathered fabric evenly through the serger. My serged seams look terrible!

Then to make things even worse, when I serged my back pieces together, the basted serge seams showed through on the right side! I'm just the worst serger....(serger-ist?)



Anyway, I needed a lot of hand-holding so I diligently followed the sewalong posts (thank god for those! Heather Lou, they were a life-saver!). My next big 'oh shit' moment was when I needed to baste the lining to the main fabric along the top of the swimsuit. Because my serging skills are so bad, the lining definitely got shifted and scrunched down into the side seams so the lining seriously probably ended up half an inch to an inch shorter than the main fabric. I cut off some of the main fabric on the back to better match the lining, but on the front I pulled up the lining to match the main fabric so things are a bit stretched to the max on the front.

If you plan on adding foam cups to your swimsuit, I would recommend adding them in at the very beginning. Sure, you won't have a finished suit to better estimate where to add the cups, but it'll be so much easier to sew them in at that earlier stage. You can pretty easily guess where the cups need to go. One additional change I made was lining my (white) foam cups in the navy lining. When I was figuring out the placement of the cups, I noticed they were very visible under the main fabric. It was very distracting, at least to me, so I lined them to better blend with the swimsuit.



Other than, no real changes to the pattern. I was thrilled that I didn't have to make any changes to fit my body! I guess my bodice is normal length (between the bust and crotch, ha!), I just have super short legs. If I were to make any changes to the next version, I would shorten the front bottom "skirt/cover portion" and raise up the bottom a bit. But that is so minor....

So funny story to end this epically long blog post where all I did was whine about how horrible I am at using my serger. I told my husband that I was making a swimsuit. Midway through he came by my sewing room to see how it was progressing. I could tell that he was aware there was a lot of fabric for a swimsuit, so I mentioned that I was making a retro/vintage inspired swimsuit design. and he asked so disdainfully, "are there shorts?" I said technically no, but there is a bit of a cover-up portion. He didn't look very impressed with my answer, but when I was finished and modeled it for him, he was very, very impressed. He said it turned out waaaay better than he was imagining and he thinks it's very flattering. Let me tell you, that is saying a lot coming from someone who is always telling me that I dress so conservatively (not that there's anything wrong with that!). So yes, this swimsuit is husband-approved!



I'm so in awe of how cleverly designed this pattern is. I remember looking at the pattern after I cut all the pieces and thinking, 'how the fuck does this go together?' For something that looks very complicated, it really isn't that difficult to make.

If you're not confident in your serger skills, I would recommend machine basting/sewing everything and then finishing the seams with your serger. That is definitely what I will be doing next time. Also, I looked at one of my bathing suits and noticed it was top-stitched with a twin needle. I'm tempted to try this on my next one instead of using a zig-zag top-stitch. I'm so thrilled with the outcome that I can't wait to make another one and now I want to try out a bunch of other swimsuit patterns! I'm so happy I no longer am forced to go swimsuit shopping!!