Vogue 9192 Stripey Swimsuit

 

2017 is the year of the one-piece bathing suit for me.

To be quite honest, I’m over the teeny triangle bikini tops and swim bottoms that you need to hold onto when a big wave breaks in the ocean.  Maybe it’s that I’m older now and I just want to be comfortable in a fuss-free swimsuit at the beach and pool.

In preparation for our Florida vacation at the beginning of June, I started scouring the internet looking for one-piece swimsuits and had a hard time finding anything that wasn’t too frumpy or mumsy looking.  I ended up buying one from J.Crew that’s pretty cute, but it still wasn’t fitting the bill of what I wanted: a low back, some kind of print or pattern that looked slimming, and something “helpful” in the bust area that I’m severely lacking.  Fortunately, Vogue 9192 checks off just about all of those boxes.

 

 

This is an awesome pattern (I want to make the other one-piece from this pattern) but the fabric is really what’s making the suit – a border print with variegated stripes on both ends and black in the middle, found in a swimsuit remnant bin at Fabric Place Basement.  Playing around with the pattern placement, I placed the bodice pieces on the fabric so that the stripes ended right where the V stops and cut the bottom portion of the suit out of the solid black part of the spandex.  That way, the stripes would draw more attention upward, with some of the larger stripes going across the bust, and the bottom part of the suit in black would have a slimming effect.  My stripe placement isn’t perfect at the side seams, which you’ll see in other photos, but I’m pleased as punch with how the stripes match across the front and back bodice pieces!

 

(I got the worst sunburn on my chest the very first day, no way to color-correct that in Photoshop!  That’s what I get for not reapplying in time!)

 

Obviously, this is a verrrrrrry low cut swimsuit in the front (and the back) and I was worried that it might not be, ahem, that secure when I wore it in the pool.  To be quite honest, I felt really comfortable and confident wearing it and would be more concerned if I had a larger bust that something might slip!  The straps across the middle are designed to anchor everything in place across the two cups; I eliminated one of them since the second one seemed too long for me and bunched up in the middle, guess I didn’t need that extra security.  I also added in some small swim cups for modesty between the lining and the outer fabric and tacked them to the lining, an exercise that took quite a lot of fussing to get the cup placement just right.

 

 

If there’s one thing I’d change about this swimsuit, if I was to make it again, it would be the order of construction when turning the seam allowances with the elastic and attaching the straps etc.  It’s very “homemade” to turn and sew the elastic, and then go back over the original stitching to attach the shoulder straps and front bodice strap.  Fortunately with black fabric and black thread it’s not noticeable, but it would have been with a lighter colored fabric.  I believe the directions are written this way because it makes it easier to construct the suit, but if you’re really looking for a professional finish, it would be best to try to do everything in one step with one line of stitching.  Just nit-picking, but it’s something I wish I thought of earlier on when I was sewing.

This design is right on-trend and exactly what I was looking for in a one-piece swimsuit pattern – c’mon Vogue, give us some more!

 

 

Pattern: Vogue 9192, View B
Fabric: spandex remnant from Fabric Place Basement