Suit up for Summer Day Five

We made it folks, today is the fifth and final day of the Suit Up For Summer Tour.  I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have.  I’ve been thoroughly inspired and learned so much along the way.

I’ve got to give a HUGE thanks to all our sponsors.  It’s been a great week and we couldn’t have done it without their generosity- from offering bloggers patterns and fabric discounts to sponsoring our giant giveaways.  I wish I could give them all a big hug and lots of chocolate 😉

You have until Tuesday to enter the giveaways so here’s a little reminder.
Giveaways closed.  Winners have been notified.

1 Pattern of choice from: Closet Case Patterns, Jalie, Gracious Threads, Lil Luxe Collection, My Childhood Treasures, 5 out of 4, Titchy Threads, Call Ajaire, Rad Patterns, and Boo! Designs.

$25 gift cards from: The Fabric Fairy, Raspberry Creek Designs, Peekaboo Patterns,

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Enter the Link up here:

For this last stop I’m sharing a few more girls swimsuits and some tips for modifying your favorite non-swim patterns to work for swimwear.

Summer is a time of family and we love that we get to spend time with these cute cousins from Arizona.  My sister loves to sew as much as I do (with three kids under 5 she just doesn’t get to do it as often as she’d like!).  I love when she’s in town and we can spend our days sewing together.  This tour was a fun chance to make coordinating suits for all the girl cousins!

This little munchkin is looking darling in her teeny weeny polka dot bikini.  My sister used the free Classic Maillot Swimskirt from our sponsor Call Ajaire.  It includes the attached swim bottoms!  For the top she used the Made By Rae Flashback Skinny Tee and brought in the sides a bit and added a band to the cropped bottom.

My oldest has such similar tastes to my own.  I giggled when I asked her what kind of suit she wanted for this last one and she described exactly what I want my next suit to be!  She’s looking hip in highwaisted Cosi Swimsuit bottoms from SewPony paired with a modified Boo! Designs Sleeved Leotard.

For her top, I simply cropped the bottom of the leotard off and used the mini skirt piece that comes with the pattern.  I modified it a bit to be a full circle skirt, just placing both edges on the fold of the fabric.  You could easily do this same thing to any top pattern and calculate your own circle skirt for the peplum.  We went through a handful of our favorite tee patterns as options before I settled on the leotard pattern since I was sewing while she was at school and couldn’t accurately gauge how much to take the sides in on a standard looser fitting tee without her trying it on.

Other modifications you can make to standard patterns include using your favorite underwear patterns for bottoms.  You can simply line them in swim lining or swim fabric!  Keep that undies pattern handy and add it to your well-loved shorts pattern, catching the top of both in the elastic casing or band, for a cute pair of swim shorts.

Close fitting tops make excellent swimwear.  I love to slim down raglans as rash guards but you could also use a well fitting tank pattern as a swim top too!   I like to line the front bodice piece for girls and add a simple elastic shelf bra for myself.  You can use elastic for the neckline and arms too.  Since it is a tight fitting garment make your elastic just barely shorter than the opening.  I serge the elastic to the wrong side and turn it under once then topstitch with a double needle or zigzag stitch.

For this cute suit, I used the Leotard Etoile with the included Demi Skirt used as a shoulder ruffle.  I serged the neck elastic to the lining, main suit and ruffle.  I then flipped the elastic under and topstitched it down underneath the ruffle keeping the clean line at the neck.

It was a breezy day and I loved catching the ruffle blowing in the wind!

This last cutie is wearing a modified Cosi Swimsuit too!  I just love that little belly but as we discovered last year high waisted suits just don’t want to stay put.

My sister sewed this one up too and I love this fabric she chose!

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I sure wish these cute cousins could see each other all the time!  They sure do love each other and we can’t wait to spend as much time as possible together this summer!

Well, folks, I quite possibly will never sew another swimsuit again.  Just kidding!  I’m ready to move on to something new but I’m pretty sure it won’t be long before I’m itching to ‘dive in’ to swimsuits again.  They really are so rewarding and such quick sews (minus those epic boardshorts!).

I really hope that you’re ready to Suit Up yourself and I can’t wait to see what you guys make this summer.  It’s really been such a pleasure hosting this tour and hearing from all of you.  Now get off the computer and get sewing!