I love my first Jalie 3350 swimsuit so much that I was itching to make another. Luckily I had scraps from my Seamwork Aires leggings that juuuuuuuust fit the swimsuit pattern pieces! Yeehaw, scrapbusting!
I love these athletic fabrics from Imagine Gnats (affiliate link); Rachael has some pretty amazing athletic and swim fabrics. I used the ikat-esque lycra on the bodice, straps and underbust piece and the black tricot nylon/lycra for the rest of the swimsuit.
I cut this swimsuit out in a post-Swimwear Month rush (I found that Curvy Sewing Collective theme month so inspirational!) about six weeks ago, but only got around to sewing it up this week.
(As an aside, I tried wearing this hat for all of my photos but it kept flopping in my face... oops!):
After noticing some wrinkles of excessive fabric at my lower back in my first Jalie 3350, I made a small swayback adjustment on the back bodice piece. I cut a little wedge out, taking some length out of the center back without changing the length of the side seams. The wrinkling you see in the photo below is just because I am twisting my body around. That's pretty much the only adjustment I made!
Strangely, the buckling I had at the top of my cups on my last Jalie 3350 doesn't seem to be as much of a problem in this suit. Not sure why, as I didn't make any changes to the cups! Maybe just the difference in fabric? This fabric is thinner than the purple poly/lyrca blend I used on my last suit. I didn't put swimcups in this one- the slots are there, but I haven't found cups I like here locally.
I bought some hardware locally to make the straps adjustable (on my previous suit I stole the hardware from an old, worn-out suit), but they were too small to jam the thick, elastic-lined straps through- boo! I ended up just sewing the straps directly to the suit. I cut off like 6" of strap on each side; damn, those thing were long!
I adore this version of the swimsuit even more than my last one... something about the bright colors and colorblocking make it feel more fun and young-feeling than my solid purple version.
Can't wait to bust this swimsuit out and put it into action for my scuba diving trip to the Philippines in early September! In the meantime, I tried to take some action shots in the pool at my apartment building, but most of them turned out terrible- the water messes with proportions in a really crazy way! Here's one that made the cut:
