Indigo one piece swimming suit (PDF)

I made a Tall Contoured Front Plain Tummy version, fully lined with a shelf bra, in black with contrast teal for the centre front panels and the shoulder straps. I am 5'9" with a long torso so I cut a size 16 widthwise and an 18 lengthwise. The fit is very good and it is comfortable - I wore it to the pool for the first time today and swam my lengths as normal.

I found the instructions a little confusing. I had to look very closely at the cutting layouts to work out which pattern pieces to use for the main fabric and the lining - they are different. A table or list would have been helpful.

Generally I find instructions with drawings rather than photos easier to interpret - these have photos and some of the fabric used is patterned - why?

The trickiest bit of actual sewing was the neck opening. I have no idea why the elastic across the front is sewn in 2 pieces??? I also found it tricky to get the right angled corners to look nice. I got there in the end but there was quite a bit of swearing and unpicking.

I had the pattern printed A0 including the sheet with the elastic measurements on it. The lengths to cut are also in a table on p 12 of the instructions so you don't really need to print that sheet at all. Especially as I could not for the life of me get the marked points on the elastic to line up with the notches on the armholes and legholes of the suit as instructed - so ended up quartering the elastic and the openings and everything came out fine. I won't bother trying to use those marks again. Something is adrift somewhere - at one point the length of the elastic was longer than the part of the hole it was to be attached to which cannot be right.

Definitely not a beginner pattern. However as the end result is so good I plan to make more - I have some navy blue fabric already cut out to make a solid coloured one next and another time, if fabric in the stash permits, I plan to try out the ruched front panel.

I think the Indigo is a style that will look good on many sizes (5’1” and old here). I made the unlined tank with the shelf bra to test for fit and had great results. After finding my base size the only modification needed was some grading at the hip. The directions were good. Thanks!!!

I found this pattern easy to adjust for my very tall daughter. It’s simple to put together and is very comfortable to wear. I’ve made her three now and she loves them.

I received this pattern as a choice from Brisbane Spoolettes Frocktails event. Thank you. I like that the pattern has different pattern sheets for a larger bust which is what I have used. I was trying to make it into a reversible swim suit with a clip at the back so I haven't finished it yet as I haven't worked out how to do it ...it is not as simple as the basic swimsuits but I will use this pattern again. I didn't like that the markings were too far from the lines, or not clear enough without having to run my fingers over them to get the right line. I'm not a fan of PDF patterns but overall it was easy enough. I haven't been using the instructions as I've made lots of togs before so can't rate them.

The issues started from the very beginning. The print chart is way off. I had no idea what pieces were where. I'm not going to print all 45 pages when I'm not using all of the options that is a complete waste. I also don't know why the contoured lining pieces were not shown on the chart at all, just a comment to print them. (not that it mattered in the end since none of the pages shown were correct. The chart said for Tall, and that is what I was printing as well.)

The instructions were not very clear on several steps, and the whole elastic 'guide' is not available unless you're using a projector or AO format. I print at home, so the notches on the garment for the elastic have no reference point. It says if it's not available then just quarter the elastic, ok fine, but they don't tell you to quarter the opening as well. (but honestly, why wouldn't it be available to everyone???) Thankfully I have made several swimsuits in the past. But a beginner sewer would be very confused by this.

I've sewn numerous swimsuits, bras, underwear as well as other garments, and have never had this much frustration with instructions and printing. I was able to sew most of the swimsuit faster than it took printing out the correct pages. I do like how it fits now that it's finally done. But this should not have been the struggle it was.

I have seen similar complaints in the review section. I really hope the company reads them and takes them to heart. The designs are nice, but I've only bought 2 patterns so far, and had issues printing both of them. I don't see buying more until some of these concerns are addressed, to be honest.

With a few tweaks to the instructions, and an actually correct printing list or chart, this could be a great pattern.