Floral scuba Sophie bikini

Hello all! Today I'm going to share this years Sophie bikini with you. You can see last years here and this year I even managed to replace the pint sized paddling pool with the real deal! My friend thought I was braving the 7 hour Megabus to Wales for her but it was actually for those sweet sweet seaside pics.

This year I actually managed to acquire some foam (for the princely sum of £12.50 for half a metre) which was very painful to hand over the money for at the till seeing as I only needed 10cm worth. Let's say it's an investment for my next 10 years of bra/swimwear making. I also bought proper rubber elastic for the first time. Of course I failed to purchase enough, so had to make do with clear elastic for the rest. I only remembered about swimsuit clasps when I got home, so I stole this one from last years bikini.

 The pattern for the bikini bottoms was my standard pants pattern which was originally copied from one of my existing pairs of pants. Now I attempted to account for the fact that I was making these in scuba by adding 1cm to the waistline WHICH WAS NOT ENOUGH. Hence the added panel at the top. According to my Mother they look a bit tight, and as per, she is right. Probably should have sized up all over. They aren't circulation-cutting-off-tight though so perfectly wearable.

 In terms of the bikini top I had a few issues. Mostly because I'm an idiot and used the pattern pieces I had when testing the pattern before they were altered for the final version. I made a couple of  test versions of different cup sizes in the foam to double check sizes before committing to the fabric. I had SO much fun butting the edges of the foam together and zigzagging. Talking of fabric, I used scuba because it's what I had. I couldn't find any existing Sophie's made from scuba but it has been used by various people for underwear so I decided that was enough to go ahead. I ended up going up 3 cup sizes mainly because the foam lessens the stretch (I think?), pinched a bit of the gaping at the top cup out, recut and took some width out of the bridge to get what you see before you today.

Said Welsh friend received a very up close and person video call to help me assess all aspects of fit. (Cheers MK.) Although it took a bit of trial and error to get it just right I'm pretty happy with what I've ended up with. It survived an (admittedly short) session of snorkelling, and what more can you ask of a swimsuit? The bridge doesn't lay flat but I'm not sure if that's because I didn't put wires in or if my boobs aren't big enough or if the fit is just wrong? Or maybe all 3. Anyway, it's the nicest bikini I've ever owned.

Thanks very much for reading and to MK and Paul for the photos,

Lauren xx