Bodysuits are back (and easy to sew)

Fellow 30-somethings, remember the bodysuits of the ’90s with snap crotches?! And if you stretched or arched your back or breathed wrong, you’d pop one of the snaps open? And if they all came unsnapped, your bodysuit would start to hitch upwards until you had weird circle cut-outs peeking above your jeans? Ah, memories.

I had one in dark green crushed velvet that I LOVED, and another that was made from ribbed cream-coloured fabric (not as pretty). And now in 2019? My daughter’s wearing bodysuits!*

(*I, of course, am not. The rule is that if you wore a trend the first time around, you’re too old to wear it when it reappears. Following that logic, I will no longer be allowed to wear jelly shoes, overalls or carpenter-style jeans.)

I started sewing bodysuits for our daughter when she started ballet as a teeny three-year-old, and somewhere along the way I started making them for school outfits, too.

They’re so versatile!

You can add a ruffle …

You can add a whole skirt!

You can make them out of crazy, wild prints!

You can make a matching skirt to wear on top!

(Then you get the fun of whipping off your skirt dramatically in your Primary class. Ask me how I know this …)

You can wear ’em to dance class, and then pair them with a skirt to wear to school!

You can make long-sleeved, long-panted (panted?) ones to wear in cold weather!

And, of course, you can make matching hair accessories! 😉

The thing about bodysuits is they’re not difficult to sew. You don’t need a serger. (I’ve made most of mine using my regular sewing machine, set to a stretch stitch.)

This is the pattern I use over and over — the Magil&Lil Romper and Dress pattern from Shwin Designs. Spend nine bucks once, and make a zillion different bodysuits (plus dresses) as many times as you want.

The pattern makes full-length pant-style rompers (and shows you where to cut if you want to make knee-length ones) but it’s easy to “hack” the pattern to make a swimsuit-style bodysuit for gymnastics, dance, etc.

Just chop the pattern after the crotch — you get a nice full-coverage bottom that’s similar to bodyshorts, with no annoying wedgies …

When you sew your own bodysuit, you use super-stretchy fabric (“knit” fabric, which is confusing because it’s not yarn-like — it’s more like bathing suit fabric).

This style has a super low back so it’s easy for kids to yank up and down when they need to pee.

Thankfully, this generation will never need to know the torture of a snapped-up crotch!