Converting a halter swimsuit...to a two strap suit!

So last year, at the end of the season, I found several tankini suit tops on sale...and they were fine, but they are all halter tops.  These don't give me the support I need AND they hurt my neck.   But with three suit tops...I can't justify spending money on another new suit.

So I decided to convert one of them to a two strap suit!  Here's how it started.

I checked the suit straps....getting a good idea of how to far in fro the sides I needed to go and how tight the straps needed to be.  I pinned them with safety pins so I could try this on without worrying about stabbing myself with straight pins or pulling them loose.

 I tried two different widths to see if I liked one better than the other.  In fact, I liked the one that was closer to the edge than the center.  I measured with a ruler and pinned them both again, tried on once again to be sure.  

I hand stitched these down - using a backstitch across the width of the strap. Then I used a whip stitch to secure the strap down against the top of the suit.  I wasn't sure about whether the placement was perfect, so I wasn't ready to cut the last bits off the straps till I wear this a few times to be sure.  I think you could machine stitch and be perfectly fine.  Make sure you secure the ends and stitch this down tight - nobody wants an unfortunate swimsuit accident :)

I can't wait to convert the other two suits the same way now that I know this works!