Swimsuits with sleeves

When the local pools shut here, I started swimming in the ocean.  My first problem was the stingers.  They are not lethal like the ones up north, but they do really sting.  For my next swim, I wore a long sleeved swimsuit that I made a few years ago and never blogged.  It was a mash up of Jalie 3668 and Jalie 3672.  It protected me from the stingers, but I ended up with chafe.  I decided to make a new sleeved swim suit.

I first chose Jalie 3464.  It is not as protective around the neck as my other suit, but it had the benefit of not needing a zip.  I chose this fun plaid lycra that I bought from Pitt Trading.  I went to a lot of effort to optimise the tensions of my overlocker, so that the seams were as neat as possible and least likely to cause chafing.  I combined the side strip and underarm strip pieces to be cut as a single piece, to minimise chafing under the arm.  

I blended two sizes, V in the upper body to a W in the lower body.  That strip down the sides shows I should have blended from a U to an X, as when worn, the strip is much wider to the bottom than the top.  

I have worn this catching waves at the beach, but I have not actually tested it out ocean swimming yet.  My regular swim suits are pretty tight and this does not feel as secure as those.  I am thinking I might prefer to wear a crop top underneath this than to wear it on its own.

The second suit I made was much more involved.  The fabric for this suit also came from Pitt Trading.

After my first chafing, I wore a RTW swim shirt that worked really well.  Actually, I probably could just wear it over my swimmers, but I was quite taken with the idea of a one piece with sleeves at this point so continued with my sewing.

This is the RTW swim shirt.  It has a really wide panel under the arms, 12 cm / 5" wide, so there are no seams in area that is prone to chafing.

My first step was to make a pattern off this shirt.  

I then modified this pattern to allow extra room for my square shoulders and improve the fit.  I took a few photos of how I modify raglan sleeves for square shoulders when the sleeve is a single piece with no darts.  I curve out each of the shoulder seams by 0.5 cm, front and back.  This adds a total of 2 cm extra width across the shoulder.

I then needed to merge this pattern with my one piece swim block.  I haven't got the length of my block quite right, so after I cut my pieces out I basted them together to check the fit.  I had to shorten both front and back by about an inch.

I had a little bit of trepidation at the idea of putting a zip in lycra.  In the past, I have always ended up with a bumpy zip when I have used these chunky style zippers.  I interfaced the zip area and followed this tutorial by Specialty Outdoors.  It worked out pretty well..

My local Spotlight had only a very limited selection of closed-end plastic zips, both colour and length-wise.  Originally I was planning a zip about 10 cm longer than this, but the end result has worked out okay and I can get into the suit easily.  

I wanted to line the front section but also wanted to minimise bulk in the zipper area.  In the end I cut an opening in the lining equal to the width of the zip.  I then hand-stitched the lining in place after the zip was attached and before the zipper tape was top-stitched.  The lining was then caught and secured when the zip was top-stitched.

I'm very happy with how the swimsuit looks.  Disappointingly though, I still ended up with chafe, albeit in a different spot, along the seam between the front and side panels on my left side.  I swam 2 km, which is less than I usually swim in the pool.  I might have to try using some sort of lubricant.

Though my next problem is that the water is getting too cold for me.  This week the weather got warm, but last week the water was cold and I couldn't swim as long.  I have noticed the other swimmers wear wet suits now.  I have a short spring wetsuit, but it doesn't fit very well because of my pear shape and I don't know how comfortable it would be for ocean swimming.  I've started getting the sniffles on the days I swim, so probably I am going to have to give up on swimming and try some other sort of exercise until the pools open again.