27 Dresses...well skirts actually

My sons' hip hop dance class consists of three boys (including my two) and 27 girls!

One of their dances for the end-of-year concert has a 50s theme and I was enlisted to make circle skirts for the girls. I did volunteer my sewing skills, but the dance teacher was rather apologetic when she told me how many skirts she needed!

I needed no excuse to go to the fabric shop for supplies. I bought 30m of polka dot fabric in two colours - white with black spots and black with white spots, 20m of black elastic and some overlocker thread. I had planned to make my own pattern, but then I found a pattern for girls' circle skirts (Simplicity 7401) in the op shop for 20c. Must have been fate!

 I modified the pattern a bit and made three sizes (6, 8 and 10 years) on sturdy brown paper. Then I got cutting and sewing.

Here is a finished skirt.

I wanted the skirts to be as quick and simple to make as possible as there were so many. They needed to look good on stage, but it was fine if they were a little rough on the inside! The pattern suggested attaching a separate casing for the elastic waistband, but I made them with an exposed elastic waistband instead.

The waistband was attached by dividing the elastic and the skirt waist into quarters, stretching each elastic quarter to fit each skirt quarter and attaching the skirt with a simple zig-zag stitch. This can be seen more easily from the inside. Of course, simple ribbon size labels were a must.

 After a while, I got a bit of a production line happening where I grouped the skirts into sizes then did all the side seams, followed by the elastic waistbands. Once they were all made, I changed the overlocker to rolled hem mode and went for it. Metres and metres of rolled hems. It was quite therapeutic actually, although I had to chase the overlocker around the table if I went too fast :)

I calculated that, once they were cut out, each skirt took about 15-20 minutes to make.

Done!

Pondering swimwear

With summer rapidly approaching here in Perth, Australia, my thoughts have turned to bathers and, more specifically, what am I going to wear in the water this year? Oh, the enormity of the decisions I must make!

Last year I made myself a tankini using Jalie pattern 3023. This was wearable, but I was never over the moon with myself in it. While I like the tankini, I don't think the design is terribly flattering on me. So, over the last few weeks, I have been pondering swimwear designs and patterns to try to find one that I could make which would suit me.

I have often admired the designs of Aussie company Jets by Jessika Allen. I think many of their styles are stylish and classy and suitable for women (like me) who want to hide certain flaws but still want to look attractive rather than grandma-ish. Their website is a treasure trove of such styles, actually 163 different one-pieces alone last time I looked, and I spent some time selecting styles that I thought would suit my body type. I usually swim in very casual surroundings with the children, so that was also a consideration.

I eventually narrowed it down to these:

source: www.jets.com.au

My thoughts went along these lines...

Overall appearance: I like styles that draw the attention upwards, towards the bust and face and away from the tummy area. I think that having detailing around the top of the bathers (Styles 1, 3, 5 and 9) helps to do this and I really like the combination of plain navy or black accented with white detailing.

Bust: I quickly decided against Style 1 as it does little to enhance the bust. All the other styles pictured here have an empire seam under the bust which is much more flattering. So, with the empire line in place, the shape of the bust coverage needs consideration. There are two main shapes in these pictures - a tall triangular shape (top and bottom rows) and a horizontal figure of 8 shape (middle row). I like both of these, but settled on the tall triangular shape as it looks easier to make ;) The figure of 8 shapes seen here would probably require moulded cups to really look right and I don't want to bite off more than I can chew as a novice swimwear designer!

Legs: I prefer more of a low cut leg for me, much like the leg shape on my Jalie tankini pants. The bands on the legs on Style 3 look nice from the front, but draw too much attention to the bum area for my liking at the back (see below), so I will stick with a basic, low-cut leg shape.

My overall favourite of these designs is Style 3 in navy with white detailing exactly as pictured above. I love everything about it except the banded legs. The little tie detail and the white bands at the neckline keep the eye away from the tummy, the bust is accentuated but well covered and the overall appearance is stylish, without looking too fancy or try-hard.

There was just one more decision to make...

...the back!

My favourite style (Style 1 above), has a rather boring back. I much prefer a style which is scooped a bit lower down the back, like Style 2 above. The wide straps on this style are also an interesting feature. I have decided against a halter-neck style, purely for comfort reasons, so it's looking like a scooped back with cross-over straps - if I can make it work with the front design I've chosen.

So, basically I want the front like Style 3 (top photo), without the bands on the legs, and the back like Style 2 (above).

Great. 

Now what? OMG I need to actually design this! Never fear, I have thought about this as well. I have three things at my disposal:

- my Jalie 3023 tankini pattern

- an old J&L bathers pattern I found at the op shop

- a rather incredible website www.patternschool.com that details how to draft swimwear to exactly fit a set of body measurements.

As I write this, I am immersed in tracing paper and scraps of lycra (sounds a bit saucy!) as I draft a pattern and begin to make a muslin for my final, dream pair of bathers. I will let you in on this design process over the next few days.