Making new Swimsuits {Ones that cover a little more}

 This summer one of our projects was to make new swimming suits for the girls. We aren't very fond of the normal swimming attire as we feel it is a bit to near like going out in your underwear (which we just don't do!) and so just going shopping for swimsuits doesn't work to well for us. Though I know there are places that do make swimsuits that actually cover - I just happen to like sewing, am rather "cheap" and am trying to use what we have rather than buying anything.

  I had some swimsuit fabric on hand that had come from my Grandma. There wasn't a lot of selection but Megan found a blue flowered piece that she thought was beautiful (Mara thought it looked like something for a Grandma but I think it turned out perfect for Megan).

 To make her swimsuit I simply made a raglan sleeve top and then attached a skirt to it. I then made a matching pair of shorts to wear underneath. It was a pretty fast project and quite fun. The material I had was already in various pieces so I had to make that work for what I needed and work around the very big pattern at the same time. It was a fun puzzle. For binding around the neck I simply used a strip of the fabric and pulled it a little while sewing it on so that it would gather the neckline up. It worked beautifully. I sewed using a variety of stretch stitch, zig-zag stitch and even just straight stitch sometimes when it wouldn't be getting stretched.

When we looked in our swimsuit material box Mara wasn't very happy with the selection except for a small piece of plaid which was primarily pink and white. Unfortunately that wasn't enough to make a modest swimsuit with. However God's timing is perfect. We are regularly given hand-me-downs from a few different sources and at the time of trying to figure the swimsuits out what should appear in the hand-me-down bag but a black sleeveless dress that was made from something very similar to swimsuit fabric. Mara was quite happy with the idea of black and we decided to use the plaid fabric as an accent. Having it already being a sleeveless dress made sewing very easy for us. We simply slit open the side a big to add a pleat of plaid fabric in so that it would be easier to move in it. We also made her some shorts and something like a sports bra out of the swimsuit fabric for her to wear underneath.  This swimsuit and the one that I made for me aren't really as covering as we like for our normal wear but since we try to mostly be in the water while wearing them, we prefer to swim in private spots when possible and we don't want something that is very bulky for swimming, and because we were working with what material we had, we have decided they will work.

  Do you prefer to have swimsuits that cover more than the normal? Have you ever tried sewing you own?