Beach Ensemble... Sarah Style!

In conservative circles, we bemoan the state of modern swimwear on a regular basis. Many of us alternate between wearing garments that make us feel uncomfortable and exposed or donning a number of different items that were never designed for water activity in an attempt to cover all of the "eek!" zones.

On top of the complications of simply staying covered, a day at the beach or pool involves a variety of other activities. Sometimes I will be inside under ac for hours before swimming. Other times, I want to relax beside the pool without showing my thighs. Maybe I want to play with one of my little nieces or nephews or take a walk without wondering who is staring at my flesh.

I tested out the ensemble above about two weeks ago at a cookout at Poe Springs, FL. It worked wonderfully! It's comprised of 5 pieces, which makes it sound complicated, but really gives me tremendous flexibility.

The undergarments are an old bra, covered in swimsuit fabric and bottoms made from my normal underwear pattern... maybe I'll post more on those two another time, although I must admit, discussing my undergarments on the internet feels a little odd... hmm.

The primary garment is a one-piece, unlined dress made from polyester/lycra knit.

I got the idea from a product sold by a company called Nuu-Muu. I loved their idea of a simple, A-line dress to wear for exercise or swimming. The only thing I didn't like is that all of their dresses have a keyhole in the front neckline, which doesn't work with my body type at all... So, I made my own version.

Swim suit fabric is expensive, so I looked at thrift stores until I found a dress made from a similar type of fabric. One of the most important skills in up-cycling and creative re-purposing is to know fabrics and fiber content. For swimwear, you want a fabric that does three things:

Stretches - you want a fabric that springs and snaps when it is stretched. Look for a knit that you can pull to almost twice its size in all directions.

Dries quickly - it may feel great to be wet when you first get out of the pool, but you don't want to still be sitting in dampness 8 hours later. As much as I love cotton, swimwear is not it's strength, so leave it alone. I've had cotton knits take close to 24 hrs to dry... yuck! The fabric you are looking for here is polyester. Polyester is a man-made fiber. It's basically glorified plastic spun into tiny fibers and woven or knit into fabric. Because of this, the fibers themselves absorb very little moisture. When you get out of the pool, the liquid is mostly suspended between the fibers and drips out much more quickly.

Resists fading in the sun - if you're going to go to the trouble to make yourself swimwear, the last thing you want it doing is turning into a totally different color after 5 wears. Again, cotton isn't going to work here. Cotton accepts dye readily, but it also loses that color pretty easily, too. Polyester gets another point, as it typically takes much longer to fade in the sun.

The fabric I used is a polyester/lycra knit. I didn't think about taking pictures of the dress before I cut it or recording the exact fiber content. The exact ratio of polyester to lycra isn't a big deal, as there is a range that will work well. Generally speaking, the more lycra, the stronger the stretch will be and the finished garment will be more clingy. 92% polyester with 8% lycra seems to be a pretty common ratio, and it very likely was the fiber content of this dress.

Over the swimwear, I wore a simple printed skirt that picked up the navy blue from the swimsuit. Since I wear skirts most of the time, I felt completely comfortable. On top, I added a light weight knit cardigan. The very top picture shows a long sleeved cardigan that I made using the techniques I demonstrated in this blog post. The picture just above shows a short sleeved cardigan I made from a knit sheet. One of these days, I will convert the pattern for it into a PDF... one day. :)