Proto-Swimwear ! And other failures...

'I'm glad this doesn't fit,' thought Merri. 'Otherwise,
she'd sew matching bunny ears and
put a tail on this thing !'

I’m nearly ready – now that summer’s slowly steaming to an end – to make swimsuits ! De-tagged the Lycra ® kiddie suits I bought at the thrift, printed out the pattern and enjoyed placing the pieces, and figuring out which doll gets which color / pattern. Ordered the fold-over elastic I need, just waiting for it to arrive. I shopped and hunted and looked, and ended up going with an Etsy seller, who let me pick ten one-yard pieces out of sixteen colors, for $5.45, shipping and all. There’s so much from which to choose, from so many sellers ! I’d love to get one of those 25 or 50 (!) yard grab bags, but that’s way more than I’m likely to use for a while, and I just don’t have the fundage. To tell the truth, my current order pretty much wiped out all but my Pinecone funds for a couple weeks. No regrets !

I tell ya, you can lose a day just looking at all the varieties of FOE. Solids, shinies, glittery, prints, designs… I had to be careful. Many of the designs were very appealing, but I really would be folding them in half. So only the bottom part of the fleur de lis would show, half the in-a-row flowers, or only the necks of Monster High or Disney Princesses would be visible on the final item. And a lot of the big grab bags were actually more expensive per yard than the small assortment I bought. Many of the glittery elastic lengths weren’t really fold-over, it didn’t have that telling ‘trough’ in the middle, which would again be hard to use the way my patterns dictate. It was a hard choice, between buying a mystery lot and enjoying the surprise, or choosing  what I know I’d use, even if it was kind of boring classics like black, white, blue, pink, navy… Still, at 54¢ a yard delivered, I got a great deal, with lots to experiment with. If I find that I like to use it, I’m sure to buy more.

I actually already have some FOE – headbands I bought from Dollar Tree months ago. I just untied the knots. When I went back for more, of course, they’d sold out. It’d take at least two former headbands to make one doll swimsuit, and if I get wired up enough and don’t wanna wait for my order, I might try.

OK, so I did. Just didn’t use the elastic. First one, from purple t-shirt fabric, had some stretch side to side and up and down, but nowhere near as much as the swimsuit stuff. So it didn’t close in back all the way, and didn’t go up quite high enough, but gave some indication of how it might work. Not too bad.

'At least yours doesn't cry out for fishnet
hosiery,' Belle chimed. 

Second try used that super-stretchy side to side metallic knit stuff. It easily fit all around, but came nowhere near fitting height-wise. So I added a hemmed strip to the past-the-waist panty fit of the trial, and ended up with a swimsuit that was long enough, it just wouldn’t stay up. Good thing the pattern has straps ! I added ribbon here, and if the finished ones fit that well, I’ll be happy.

And I feel a lot more confident about sewing up swimsuits now. My elastic has shipped, so there’ll be more to come soon !

(Glad I have some confidence somewhere - 

I fell in the driveway today after my feet found a divot between lawn and driveway. My hands still feel raw, but it was mostly my pride that stung !)