>>Would you mind sharing what you did for bathing suits? I’ve been looking at various patterns.<<

A couple of years ago I bought patterns in the girls and ladies sizes from the following company – http://www.modestswimwearsolutions.com/.  I looked at several different patterns but liked this one best, because they looked nice and for the ease of sewing.  It’s basically a dress made of swimming suit material with leggings underneath.  I made three suits for the girls and one for myself (though I was 6 months pregnant at the time so I adapted it accordingly).   I also liked that the patterns were made with the option of several sleeve lengths and several legging lengths  – I made 3/4 length sleeves with leggings that just covered the knee but didn’t stick out under the dress.

I bought a the swimsuit material on ebay, and including the cost of the materials and patterns, it was under $20 per suit.  (And I still have enough material left to make a couple more suits, which will essentially be free.)

Though everyone said how easy this was to sew, there was one part of it that I found challenging – there’s a V where the top part of the dress and bottom part connect, and I had trouble getting it to lay smoothly.  I’m far from a professional seamstress but can handle basic stuff without too much trouble and kept wondering as I was making these how so many people who said they didn’t know how to sew could do this while I was struggling with it.  I took it apart several times and redid it, and then changed the design for later suits so I wouldn’t have the problem.  I still wonder if it was something obvious that I did wrong to cause that difficulty.

Our family likes to do outings and activities together, but as the kids get older, modesty between parents and siblings becomes an issue.  So if we found a private part of a beach or secluded lake, the girls would wear long t-shirts over their bathing suits, which I didn’t find a good solution. Wet t-shirts get heavy and I don’t think they’re safe to swim in.   Enter the solution – modest bathing suits.

We used these on our yearly camping trip right after I made them, and they were wonderful!  We went tubing at a private swimming hole in West Virginia, and went swimming at a thermal lake where there were others except for our family.  They were comfortable, modest, and very convenient, since we could wear them on a hike, jump into the water, and keep them on for the hike back.

For the younger boys, I bought wetsuit style bathing suits from cwdkids.com when they were half price (I just bought three more since I was missing the sizes I need for ds3 and ds22 months).  They are comfortable and now the little ones have been running around in them all day long – ds22 months in particular loves his – he brings it to me every time he needs to get dressed and keeps it on.  This is a big deal since he’s been going through a stage of pulling all his clothes off!

I need to make some more suits for the girls since I discovered this year that they’ve outgrown the ones I made.  Dd8 can fit into the suit I made for dd12 and I’ll just have to shorten it, but the older two girls need new ones altogether.  I took apart my maternity suit so I can use the material to make a new suit, I’m going to take apart dd14’s suit and I have extra material from the original batch that I bought, so I should have enough to make three new suits.  I’m thinking of changing the pattern and making a top with a skirt/legging one piece combo, because it will be more flattering than dresses and then I can avoid that problem that I had last time.

Avivah