Sewing Adventures: Sewing for presents or when I forget how to sew for tall people

Do you make gifts for the family? I try to make as many as I can and for Christmas 2016 there was a definite swimsuit theme happening. I’ve already shared the roarsome suit I made my niece and the cute rashie I made for my nephew.

This swimsuit had slightly less success. It’s the Alison by Burdastyle which I’ve made before here. The pattern has plenty of issues but the style is cute so I thought I’d whip one up for The Englishman’s sister.

Fabric was the easy part using these great prints from Pitt Trading.

I already had H’s measurements so I cut her size in the width and went for the longest length as she is quite tall. Sadly it wasn’t quite enough length! They came up too short in the overall length, a clear case of me being short and forgetting just how tall she is. Rather than send them back I told her to find a shorter friend to give them to and I’ll make her a new pair.

I didn’t get a great pic before I sent the parcel off but I made a coverup to go with the swimsuit. I thought it would be handy getting to and from the beach or the pool?

This embroidered white cotton voile, another Pitt Trading fabric was perfect. It has this amazing border to it which kind of did all the work for the garment. I kept it simple and used the Named Asaka kimono pattern. The only change to the pattern was to cut the sleeves on the fold to take out the nice split sleeve that normally features in the garment. Seeing as how I wanted a sun protective garment I thought it best to cover up the slit. To help secure the cover up I added a decorative white and gold cord as waist tie.

Pattern: Burda Allison swimsuit, Named Asaka Kimono

Alterations: add length to the body of the swimsuit

Fabric: Fabric and trims for both from Pitt Trading