Jeepers, it’s hard to buy bathers in the shops!  There are plenty there, but finding ones in the right size and with the amount of coverage that you prefer can be a minefield.  After a frustrating pre-Christmas day of trawling the shops, I told Stella that I’d just make her some.  The only caveat was that she’d need to choose from my existing swim fabric stash – I didn’t have the time or energy to go out and buy more.  And this is what we ended up with!

The bottoms are the Vernazza Two Piece bottoms.  I sewed this pattern for Clare a few years ago and she’s still wearing it (the top fits her much better now!). I’ve sewed the bottoms for Clare again since then to match with purchased tops, so Stella was able to try them on and see if she liked the fit. My daughters both prefer decent coverage in their bathers bottoms; they don’t want them going up their bums! I sewed the smallest size. The swim fabric is from Rathdowne Fabrics; as is the lining. I used stash elastic around the leg openings – it’s not swim specific but history has shown me that it will be fine for the amount of getting wet that it will receive.

For the top I used a pattern that I found on Etsy. It came with pattern pieces but didn’t seem to have instructions!

Because I’ve sewn bathers before I had a fair idea of the best order of construction, so muddled it together. In hindsight the Vernazza top would have been better but I thought that the Etsy one would be quicker, and I had very limited time. The fabric is lovely, and the top looked cute on, but I needed to come to the rescue with a needle and thread once it was wet! The neckline gaped far too much with movement and definitely caused ‘nip slip’ so I tacked the cups together a little higher up, which rectified the issue. I probably should have included elastic along the upper edge of the cups to ensure that the neckline would sit closely to the body.

I’ll probably sew another top to go with the bottoms, but am pretty much out of that pretty floral print (much to Clare’s chagrin). Bathers are quite fun to sew once you’ve made them a few times!