In between my St. Patrick’s Day socializing I found time this weekend to think about the beach. Only a few months to get ready for bikini season, and that means only a few months to assemble all of my beach attire and accessories to wear over and with said bikini. With the idea of warmer weather firmly planted in my brain, and this really cute fabric on hand from my last trip to affordable fabrics, I decided to make myself a quick and easy beach cover-up to wear this upcoming season. Hopefully by the time summer gets here, blue and white stripes will still be in style…..
Again, the inspiration for this dress was all in the fabric. I found it by chance in a store and had to get some. It already matches my favorite swim suit, so I bought it without a clear idea of what I was going to make. Fortunately, that same fabric store was also having a sale on vintage patterns for 99 cents! I love vintage patterns. So I bought two…
One of the patterns that I bought included a really simple night-gown with a draw-string neckline. I decided to make my cover-up using this pattern, but made some minor alterations to the length, drawstring, suggested materials, and construction of the underarms to make it more flowing and casual. The dress is made from what I assume to be a lightweight 2-way stretch lycra, though the bold of fabric was not labeled. The drawstring is made from three strips of the same fabric braided together to form a less-stretchy cord. But just to be safe, I over-stretched the cord while braiding, like you would to take the stretch out of cotton jersey cord, so that it lost most of its elasticity and won’t sag as I’m wearing the dress. 
The cute red belt is made from braided cotton, and is the result of an experiment with the draw-string. I originally considered making the draw-string red, and braided this red cotton for that purpose. But the fabric was a little too heavy and it didn’t make a nice bow in the center. The red was also a little overwhelming taking up that much center real-estate on the piece, so I opted for the more subtle blue and white texture.
But since I had the cotton already braided, I knotted the ends with some fabric glue and made it into a belt! Now I can wear the dress lazy and unbelted on the beach, and belted for a slightly more polished board-walk look. Now all I need are my sandals and beach tote!
Speaking of which, I need to make a matching beach tote now……
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