Let me tell you about how many months I've been wanting to make a crochet bikini. At least 12. Yeah I put it off for that long, whatever! So a month ago I went and bought a couple of adorable patterns from Etsy shop Capitana Uncino. They're so friggin cute, check out her store. But as I was making one cup, I just didn't feel confident that it would be big enough, but I didn't want to start over with a larger size and have that be too big...so I just scrapped it. Plus the sizes were s-xl...so did she keep the cups proportional to the width of the piece? Did the cups get wider, or just bigger over all? I had no idea and I didn't want to rewrite someone else's pattern, so I just pretended I never bought them. Hah.
If you're a small gal with A or B cups, man, you can just go right ahead and follow her patterns exactly. And I recommend it, they're amazing.
So anyway, I thought it would be easier to just construct my own from scratch. If you look up free crochet bikini patterns, most of them have the same cup construction: start with a chain, sc down one side, do 3 sc in the top, sc back down the other side, turn ch 1, repeat for 9-12 rows. But just doing that over and over only works if you have cute lil boobers, not big ones. It'll just get taller and taller and not very wide, so you've got to incorporate longer stitches in the bottom half so it gets wider.
Now, I'm going to give you my pattern for my exact size, so it's unlikely this will fit you like a glove, however it's a great jumping off point. Take this pattern, try it out, make changes, do lots of trial and error, whatever you gotta do to make it fit! Amazingly I did almost zero unraveling to make this...I'm basically a crochet bikini super hero. Bahaha. Usually I wear a 32E or 30F, just so you know.
Supplies
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worsted weight cotton yarn [Buy 2 50g skeins of the main color, you won't use much of the 2nd skein but you will need it. For the alternate color, you don't need much at all, you probably have enough at your house already haha.]
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4mm hook
First you make each cup separately, then you do the bottom part. The shirt part?? I guess??
Cups (make 2)
All rows will start with turn, ch1, regardless of the first st in the row. When crocheting into hdc stitches, go through all 3 loops unless stated otherwise.
Chain 10, turn.
R1: sc in first 8 st, 3sc into 9th st. Continue going around the other side of the chain. sc into next 8 st.
R2: turn, ch1. sc in first 9 st, 3sc into 10th, sc in next 9st.
R3: turn, ch1. dc in first st, hdc in 2nd st, sc in next 8 st, 3sc into next st, sc in next 8 st, hdc in next, dc in next.
R4: turn, ch1. dc in first 2 st, hdc in next 2 st, sc in next 7 st, 3sc into next st, sc in next 7 st, hdc in next 2, dc in next 2.
R5: turn, ch1. sc in next 12 st, 3sc into next st, sc in next 12 st.
R6: turn, ch1. dc in first 3 st, hdc in next 3 st, sc in next 7 st, 3sc into next st, sc in next 7 st, hdc in next 3, dc in next 3.
R7: turn, ch1. sc in next 14 st, 3sc into next st, sc in next 14 st.
R8: turn, ch1. hdc in next 15 st, 3hdc into next st, hdc in next 15 st. [hdc, not sc!]
R9: turn, ch1. hdc in next 16 st, 3hdc into next st, hdc in next 16 st. Crochet though the back loop only! [the back loop relative to you]
R10: turn, ch1. hdc in next 17 st, 3hdc into next st, hdc in next 17 st. Crochet though the front loop only! [the front loop relative to you]
R11: turn, ch1. hdc in next 18 st, 3hdc into next st, hdc in next 18 st. Crochet though the back loop only! [the back loop relative to you]
R12: turn, ch1. hdc in next 19 st, 3hdc into next st, hdc in next 19 st. Crochet though the front loop only! [the front loop relative to you]
Finish off!
Aaand that's how you make a wide, rounded, crochet bra cup. Take what you've learned here and make one that perfectly fits you!
So now obviously you need to make the bottom part! The construction for that is to make a chain, then crochet along the bottom of each cup, with chains in between each cup if you need a gap (which I don't), then a chain as long as the first one you did. You can choose to go across your whole back if you like, but I recommend not going in the round, because eventually your top will stretch out, so it's better to be able to tie it together.
Here's what I did, obviously you can modify it as you like.
Bottom half
To use the dc mesh, you'll need your stitch count to be an odd number.
Chain 14, sc across both cups on the bottom, chain 14.
R1: turn, ch1. sc into each st. Now's the time to either increase or decrease anywhere in this row to make your stitch count odd if you need to.
R2: turn, ch4 (counts as dc ch1), dc into 3rd st, ch 1 skip the next. Repeat dc ch1 sk til end of row, ending on dc.
R3: turn, ch 1. sc into top of dc and between dc.
R4-R5-R6: repeat R2,R3,R2
R7: Switch colors. So on this row I did puff, skip. I did a puff with 3 yarn overs, but do whatever kind of puff you want. You could do dc bobbles instead, but you'll want to skip R6 if you do.
R8-R9: Switch back to first color. repeat R3,R2
R10: okay this row isn't perfect, count-wise, but it works. So to make this perfect, you need your stitches to be divisible by 7, but mine wasn't and it looks fine so don't stress about it. Just split the odd remainder evenly on each side and make it work lol. turn, ch 1. skip first 6 st, dc into 7th st. do 2 more dc into same st, ch2, slip stitch into first ch, 3dc into same st. skip next 6 st. In next st, do the same 3dc, ch2, sl st to first ch, 3 dc. repeat til end of row, then sl st into the last st. [instead of skipping the first 6 st, on my count I skipped the first 5, and at the end of the row I had 4 st left. You just want it to be as even as possible.]
Finish off. Cut 2 pieces of 8" lengths as fringe for shell/triangle. Mine has 13.
Originally I wanted to make my bottom go to just above my belly button, but I was out of mint yarn. I went to michaels and bought some and...the colors weren't a perfect match (it was a year old skein lol)...so I decided to add long fringe as kind of a replacement for length. To continue, I'd repeat the mesh and puff row pattern a couple more times.
Straps
I just did two chains. Chain right into the top of the cup, and make it nice and long so you can weave it through the back, tie a bow, and have long tails. Each strap is 100 chains long, and before finishing off, thread extra yarn into the last chain so you get extra fringe in there. Knot it off when you're done. Then contort like a gymnast and lace it up behind your back bahaha.
Man. That took longer than I thought to type up! Haha it's nearly dinner time and I started this after lunch. Well I hope this was helpful and makes it easier for some of you to make your own crochet bikini!! Tag me on instagram @hellohappycrafts if you make one!! And if you want to pin this, you can use this happy, pinterest-friendly image:
Tags: Clothing, crochet pattern, freebies