Craftiness + Hoochiness = Knitted Bikini
Check out what I made! I felt like I’d been making scarves for years, so as a change of pace I decided to knit a bikini using Get Crafty’s fabulous instructions. It’s knitted with cotton, not wool, and as I used a double thickness throughout it’s pretty dense (and therefore ensures no nipple visibility). Unfortunately this design is just not the right swimsuit for my body shape. The trunks, which just barely manage to go over my thighs, are pretty cute, but they’re so low that I have major plumber butt (even though I followed the instructions for “more coverage”). And the top… Well, I think the main problem is that string bikinis aren’t made for girls with larger boobs. I’m a C cup, and the whole triangle thing just doesn’t work. Even if I made them bigger, they still don’t fit the shape of the breast very well. (I really need to figure out how to knit one with an underwire.) So needless to say, I shan’t be sporting this puppy at the beach anytime soon. It was a fun experiment though.Some notes if you’re interested in trying it yourself:
As I can’t get the kind of cotton recommended in the pattern here, I just went with normal DK weight cotton. Unfortunately I knitted a test swatch and my gauge was way higher than it needed to be. I was afraid to move up a needle size though, for fear that the weave would be too open (and I wanted to keep the nips covered). So I played around a bit and discovered that if I doubled up the cotton and went to a 5mm needle, I got the correct gauge and the fabric was nicely dense. Unfortunately that meant I needed twice as much cotton. Luckily I’d bought 4 50gm balls, and I used up just about all of it.
Another problem: I knitted the two boob triangles on different days and my knitting tension changed significantly, which means they’re slightly different size. I’d suggest that you knit them both at the same time to avoid this.
The biggest problem I had was the bit at the end of the pattern where it tells you to “single crochet” around the trunk elastic and the bikini chain. I posted a request for help on Glitter and was directed to this page of instructions. That’s for making a hair band, but I figured out fairly quickly to adapt it to what I needed to do. I did the bikini chain easily, but I decided not to finish the trunks since they don’t fit well enough to ever wear.
17 responses
You are so going to get weird search requests thanks to this post!
Yeah, I figured as much. 🙂
All I can say is that string bikinis are only really meant for about a dozen girls worldwide, and most of them are airbrushed, and I bet that none of them can knit. That said, I admire your craftiness (I won’t be trying this project soon). 😉
I have the same problems with breast size and hips but thought they would be cute on my daughters, so I will try it for them Thank you
On the top, when I crocheted the elastic on the cups, I skipped every other knit row, thereby giving a gathered effect, allowing more contouring of the cup when worn. I used Sugar and Cream worsted weight cotton, and got 2 tops out of the 5 oz. ball. on size 6 needles. For the bottom, I used Berrocco cotton with rayon, and this seemed to have more strength, plus sheen and a bit of an elastic feel. To fix the bit of a wobble on the top, I used coated wire from a craft store to bolster the hold.
great!
This has spiced up my ideas. Thanks!
Thanks for putting this pattern up, I have been looking to knit a bikini but did not have a pattern. I will try it out, hopefully it will turn out well!
I’m going to try it- I think when you knit it yourself it makes up for some of the body imperfections a “purchased” bikini shows.
I’M REALLY STRUGGLING WITH THE CROCHET BIKINI I NEED A PATTEN DESPRETLY PLEASE HELP THANK
As Get Crafty is currently down, there’s a pattern for a crocheted bikin here. (Sidenote: You might try phrasing your requests a little nicer next time. Proper capitalization and complete sentences are always appreciated!)
COULD I GET THE INSTRUCTIONS TO MAKE THIS IT IS BEAUTIFUL
Read up one comment. There’s a link.
The bikini weblink is changed to:
http://www.getcrafty.com/knitbikini.html
Thanks Marie. I’ve changed it in the original post.
Do you crochet? Last year I made bikinis for all my teen and twenties nieces. I used a book from Jenny King. Her fit is great. Her patterns are also in Crochet! One of my nieces is a D cup and it fit her great. Hope that helps for those of you that also crochet.
Laura
http://www.fancyfeetjewelry.com
The link is dead, can someone find it again?