Simplicity 8513, Bodysuit

Making underwear is always fun. There's something really lush about playing with different fabrics and lace and elastics to make something practical but also alluring. Having only used a snippet of my lovely sparkly gold and black jersey on my recent underwear set I was keen to find use for the rest of it.

The Simplicity 8513 Bodysuit caught my eye as something a little different, still giving me opportunity to use all the lingerie tricks I've learnt, but also make something I can show off!

As the bodysuit is meant to be tight fitting I urged myself to make a toile to get the fit spot on before cutting into any special fabrics. I've had some black jersey sat in my stash for some time now so thought it was finally time to put it to good use. It wasn't the stretchiest jersey, but with it in mind that my fun lingerie fabrics would have more stretch I went ahead and cut a SMALL, adding a little extra in at the hips, and mentally prepared myself for it to be a bit TIGHT.

Step one of Bodysuit A is arguably the most satisfying step in any sewing pattern ever. You turn a long loop, cut it into eighths then attach them to the right side of the neckline to make little loops for threading your lace-up through later. Once you attach your facing, clip into the 'V' and turn it the right way out, your heart will do a little skip I promise!! Add in a sneaky bit of understitching and you've gone and made yourself a super sexy neckline.

Yeah, I loved it but first try on suggested the neckline really was a bit lower than I could get away with! There are 4 loops on either side, I thought if I could reshape the neck by raising up the V by a few cm and omitting the bottom pair of loops I could still keep it sexy, but also a bit more... Wearable?! I found a thin black lace in my stash and decided to use this instead of making my own cord like the pattern suggested.

Based on visual judgement more than anything, I decided to stitch my side seams and underarm seams with a 1cm seam allowance instead of 1.5cm. This fabric realllly wasn't very stretchy!!

Having cut a SMALL it also became clear quite quickly that the bodysuit was too short in the body and there was no way the front and back crotch were going to be meeting up anytime soon. I'd marked on my pattern when the waistline should be, as indicated on the paper pattern, then worked out how far off it was from my actual waist. I ended up adding 6cm in to make it the right length, which meant the curve in the centre back seam now sat nicely over my lower back and bum.

I decided to hem the sleeves before I stitched the underarm seams- it was cheating a bit but I didn't fancy stretching the handhole around the machine to hem it, so chose to do it flat.

First try on after the sleeves were in suggested that the excess I'd added into the hips wasn't necessary (especially as the rest was soo fitted), and confirmed that I needed to add a little more onto the shoulders so that my sleeves sat on my shoulder point.

So technically this is my second toile using plain black jersey, with the adjustments above. I am really happy with the neckline now and think when I make another with my stretchier glitzy fabric the fit will be on point. There's some lovely sleeve and neckline variations included in the pattern, I can't wait to make more more more.

x

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