As promised earlier this week, I have some photos for you of the inside of my Bombshell swimsuit. Creating the inside support for this swimsuit was all trial and error and the below posts and articles helped me decide how to approach adding support:
- Pattern Review member heathertyfeatherty discusses options for adding boob support to a swimsuit and suggests Sew Sassy as an option for sourcing cups, underwires, etc. Read her post here.
- Sew Stylish Magazine has an article on "How to Install Bathing Suit Bra Cups" with some helpful tips
- Leila from Three Dresses Projects shows how to construct and add a bra to a swimsuit in this post
Since I have never sewn a bra before I did not feel confident or had the necessary supplies at home to add a full bra. However, just adding a little bit of random padding, when store-bought cups don't fit at all, seemed too little.
So I decided to go with a sort of non-underwired bra support by adding a pull-over type bra, like you find in sports bras.
To do this, I put on my sadly sagging finished Bombshell (only the top elastic was still unfinished) and marked where I would like the elastic to go under my bust. Then I used the Bombshell pattern to cut another top part that only went to where the elastic under my bust would go. Does that make sense?
Now it gets a bit more complicated. Instead of adding shop-bought bra cups, I traced the cup pattern off of one of my favourite non-underwired bras and sewed it up in a bra cup foam I purchased from Sewy.de. I then sewed this into one layer of the bra top, using my existing bra as a guideline and removed the fabric covering the cups (as in the SewStylish article).
Next I cut some plastic boning to put in the side seam, covered the ends with boning caps and sewed them in. I then covered this construction mess with another layer of swimsuit lining, added elastic all around the bottom and then pinned it to the top of the suit and finished the suit as per instructions.
What really worked with my inside bra construction on this suit is that it does give adequate support, however, I do wish to find some solutions to avoid these problems next time:
- The Bombshell swimsuit is very fabric-heavy to start with. Adding another two layers across the top makes the swimsuit even heavier and it takes ages to dry when wet. Next time, I think, I will sew the cups and support right into the lining itself to avoid this problem.
- The swimsuit is difficult to pull over the hips, since the elastic that goes under the bust is very tight and only barely stretches to fit over the hips. I could perhaps solve this problem by either only using elastic in the front, but this might not give adequate support, or adding a clasp at the back. What do you think?
- The boning is very inadequately covered by the swimwear lycra and it constantly seems to dangerously want to poke through. I might have to create sturdier boning channels next time I use boning on a swimsuit.
- And the last issue I have with it is that I still find the neck opening a little low. It comes dangerously close to nipple flashing when swimming and diving in the water. But I suppose that can easily be solved by re-cutting the pattern next time.
Despite all these problem points, most things worked really well with this swimsuit and I'm more than happy with the result. I've never sewn a swimsuit before and it came out looking pretty decent for a first attempt so I need to high five myself :).
Any tips on boob support in swimwear are highly appreciated in the comments! I have already sewn another bikini version of the Bombshell and stumbled upon more construction intricacies that I will share with you when I'm back from my holidays in two weeks. Happy July everyone!