Sunday fun-day or Sunday fail-day, choose your own adventure

Hey folks,

How's it going?  Here in Queens, its been getting nice out! Nice out!!  You all have no idea how long I haven been waiting for this.  Actually if you are on the east coast you probably do know.  ::Air high-five::

Last week I made the bold statement to my F-ce (pronounced F-say, short for finance) that I was going to make a dress in a day.  That was supposed to be last Sunday.  I had my fabric all washed dried and pressed by Saturday night and I was going to make a quick tube dress that cinched around the bodice with shirring.  You probably know what I'm talking about, its like a classic sumer dress that you can get at JC penny for like $15 on sale.  Anyways, my fabric had large horizontal stripes so I was going to cut the fabric on the bias to make a chevron.  Weeeeellll that was my plan anyways.  Sunday morning I felt less than amazing after a wine tasting followed by sharing a bottle at home on Saturday night (that's all it takes these days) and figuring out the chevron seemed all too much for my already hurting brain.  So instead of making a dress in a day, I took a nap.  Aka watched a documentary on netflix and tried to nap but was sucked into the documentary instead.  It was a total fail Sunday on so many levels.

Anyways.  Monday was a new week and I decided to push the dress aside and purchase a pattern with small pattern pieces so there would be minimal tape-age. I wanted something I could push out quickly after that Sunday of failure.  Enter stage left, ... the Soma swimsuit by PaperCut Patterns:

I know what you're all thinking.  Been there done that kten, the soma was so last year.  We're all sewing bras now.  Whelp.... I just started my blog this year and last year I wasn't sewing from patterns.  So it is what it is folks.  The Soma happened and I 'ain't taking it back!

Anyways, in my haste to have a more successful week, I rushed myself into reckless abandon and didn't mark any of my notches.  ... I know I know... I'm kind of hanging my head in shame.  For what it's worth I will be copying my notches next time, because if you look closely the bust seams they are totally off kilter.  I swear it's not my chest's fault, lol. Putting the whole notchless-sewing aside, I actually found this make to be more difficult than I was expecting, given other bloggers reviews.  Maybe the universe was just against me, or maybe you're all just better seamstresses than I am (probably the later) but things kept going wrong.  First off I had trouble cutting out the fabric.  If I pinned it the fabric it was too wavy to get an accurate cut with my scissors and if I used pattern weights and my rotary-cutter it was hard to get some of the little angles really precise.  Then I got it under my machine and I realized (after much hair pulling) that if I sewed the lining-side up my walking foot would snag on the fabric and cause the cloth to jam.  Ugh, it was so traumatic.  Has that ever happened to anyone else?  The walking foot of all things causing a fabric jam.  I mean really.  If there was ever a foot that was supposed to be on my side you would think it would be the walking foot.  Anyways after I figured out what was going on with that I realized that my machine was skipping stitches! Whhhhhyyyyy?! The horror... Then I finally put it on and realized that even though I cut out the xxs, the bust cups were still slightly too big.  Talk about salt in the wounds my friends #smallbewbproblems.  

With all that said, for everything that went wrong, I'm going to be nice to myself and say I think it came out OK for a first try.  I showed my F-ce and my mom, who happened to be over yesterday, and they both said "It looks good.  I really like the fabric!" So there you go, I'm a talented fabric shopper.  Ha.  At least the fabric distracted them from some of the construction issues.   

The fabric I purchased at one of my local fabric shops, $6/yd and it was 60", so I expect to get a least two if not three more bathing suits out of it.  The bra straps, elastic and foam cups (which I added for modesty but also to help suck up a little of that extra cup room) came from Daytona trims in the city. I've only been there once, but for what it's worth I really liked it.  Here's a close up so you can see my shame:

 Look at those skipped stitches.... and the waviness along the bust seams...and the puckering  in the center.  Thankfully the the puckering and the waviness (mostly) goes away when I'm wearing it.  Who know's what will happen when it gets wet though.  You can be sure I'm gonna have a back up swimsuit in my bag when I muster up the courage to take this baby for a dip.  But, let's take a minute to look at that fabric.  Isn't that nice fabric? Lol.  All jokes aside, I do really like it.  It's a heather grey with white and yellow polka dots and I lined it with a pink lining.  The combination makes the fabric come off grey but with just a hint of purpleness when all is said and done.  I don't know if you'll agree with me, but the fabric makes me think of  Le Petit Prince.  So of course this will be my Little Prince bikini.  Ok once last picture for the road:

Oh and in case you're wondering, no I don't go swimming in skirts, but I thought the top and skirt was enough skin for one post and to be quite honest a bikini bottom is a bikini bottom is a bikini bottom.  I could have used one of the soma bottoms, but I never make things easy on myself, so why would I start now?  Instead I'm in the process of finishing a rub-off of an H&M bottom that ties at the sides.

The skirt I got at some random shop in Cairo, Egypt when I was studying there in like... 2004?  Fun fact, it's a size xxl, so I guess it was supposed to be a mini, not a midi.

Anyways, that's all.  I hope you all accomplished everything you wanted to on this Sunday. Later :o)