I have a trip to Iceland coming up in July, and one of the first things that we’ll be doing is visiting the Blue Lagoon; I thought I should treat myself to a new swimsuit – or rather, now that I’m older, a bikini. However, after being unsatisfied with the range available in my local shops, I thought I’d turn one of my (many!) bras into a bikini top. No problems there, found a tutorial, woop-de-doo.

The problem lies with the fabric. I have some synthetic, striped material that’s been lying around my fabric box and I thought ‘hey, I think I could use this!’. But I don’t know if it’s swimmable or not! It stretches in both directions, it’s thin, and it seems to be okay when I test it, but my fingers are unreliable, and I was wondering; is there any other way to test a fabric to see if it’s swimmable or not?