Day 9 of the swimwear sewalong and I've diverted from making my bikini top towards making the bottoms.
I knew with the bikini top that I was approaching a stage where I'd need an overlocker and so I thought while I was threading it up I may as well go ahead and make a start on the briefs. Briefs are such a quick and satisfying thing to sew!
Enclosed crotch seam:
In order to make a nice comfortable enclosed seam then you'll need to layer up the pieces like so...
The back piece in the main fabric, right side up.
The front piece in the main fabric right sides together with the back piece.
The front piece in lining, right sides up on top of that.
Finally, the back piece in lining right sides together with the front lining. It always takes me a few moments to work out if I have that correct!
I mark the centres of all the pieces with pins so I can line all four edges up together and then sew with the overlocker. This creates a seam that is enclosed by the back two pieces.
(The steps are a little different if your crotch piece is a seperate piece but you can still achieve enclosed seams where it meets both the front piece and back piece. It's most commonly known as the 'burrito method')
From this stage on, the two front pieces (main fabric and lining) and the two back pieces (main fabric and lining) should be treated as one piece.
I could have hand basted them together but I try and avoid that at all costs! The other option would be to use the temporary spray adhesive but I just wasn't sure about that on the white base fabric and didn't want to risk marking it. Instead I just worked carefully, keeping all the layers together as needed.
Leg elastics:
You could attach your leg elastics at this point and then sew the elastic ends together in the side seam but I prefer sewing my elastics onto the leg after the side seams are sewn, so that I'm sewing the elastic in a loop.
So I've pinned the four layers of my side seams together and I'm ready to sew!
Anyone else working on a two piece? Or are you sewing a one piece? The steps are a little different but many of the techniques are the same.