Friday, September 11, 2015

Bathing Suit

This will be the last Gertie Hirsch pattern for a while, I promise.

I've mentioned a party a couple of times now. It was my five year anniversary (September 1, but we celebrated August 29) and I was hoping for a glorious sunny day, like we've had all summer. Mom and I had planned this big party at her friends absolutely stunningly beautiful house. The house is right on a lake that's warm enough and clean enough to swim in, which is a bit of a rarity for WA. I doubted that I would actually go swimming because I wouldn't want to mess up my hair or make-up, but just in case I wanted a cute swimsuit to wear.

And being as enamored with Gertie Hirsch as I am (have I mentioned yet that I am in no way shape or form affiliated with her, she is totally not paying me to pimp her stuff, I just love her ascetic) I decided to make Butterick 6067. My boyfriend bought me the fabric for the suit from this cool local shop called Seattle Fabrics. They specialize in fabric for outdoor gear, and the associates were very nice and helpful. The fabric is fantastic, nice and heavy not that tissue paper feeling stuff I've seen suits made out of.

And this is were the story takes a turn for the worse. I think I sewed and ripped out this pattern so many times that I probably actually made the suit four times over. I twas horrible. If I had paid for the fabric myself I probably would have just trashed it and given up, but because my boyfriend paid for it I felt a little bit more obligated to make it work.

The upside is that I did end up with a wearable finished product.


The downside is I still may never wear it because the neckline isn't so flattering and it feels like the girls are trying to make a break for freedom out the sides and I don't know how to fix it. 

The best I can think of is to maybe remove the layer of foam interfacing from the bust. I think it's too stiff so rather than conforming to my breasts it's just looking all funky and sort of football shaped. I just don't have the heart to do that yet because it would mean taking it apart for the fifth time. 

One of the other things I didn't like about this pattern was that all of the seams were exposed on the inside, even though it's fully lined. I modified the construction so that it's now as clean and pretty on the inside as it is on the outside. Which isn't very comforting when I don't think I'll wear the suite. 

And it turned out not to matter that the suit didn't look good because it poured rain the entire day of the party and that day was the turning point in the weather because summer seams to be totally over and done here. I guess I've got nine months to futz and see if I can make this wearable. And I do want to fix it because I still think the design is totally adorable. 

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