Okay! I have been through the "hell week" of bodybuilding suit designer business initiation. I have made and remade enough bikinis and one-piece suits to qualify for the lycra hall of fame this week. I've glued on enough Swarovski Crystals to require the boiling of a herd of hooves (do they still make glue from horses?). I have missed hours and hours of quality sleep, stuck myself in all kinds of interesting places with various instruments of sewing torture, and managed to grow spiritually along the way.
I now know that I have more things to clarify with clients BEFORE the job starts...hopefully there WILL be more clients! I don't think I totally scared off the women I was working for, but we certainly had some educational moments!
1) do not EVER EVER EVER use pepto-bismol pink wet-look spandex for ANYTHING, especially not a swimsuit. It sucks. I remade the suit about 5 times before we tried it out of a different fabric and hit it on the first try. I was sure her butt was changing shape on a daily basis. I even tried boning in the suit (the stuff used to stiffen corsets).
2) boning doesn't help swimsuits.
3) Go for the thicker elastic...1/4 inch elastic is too wussy to hold a suit on to the buttock area appropriately
4) Poor Phyllis needs a brazillian butt lift. I have to stuff the bottoms of my suits with socks and stuff to fill them out for putting on stones.
but I finished and delivered six suits this week--four of them with 48 hours to spare before the show! Here is the biggest thing I learned:
5) It takes more than six weeks to make a good suit, even though I can make a suit in a day...sometimes it takes five or six fittings to get it right.
although hopefully I'll be better at this and not need QUITE so many fittings next time.
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