Spring Break Beach Outfits

The second week theme challenge for Project Run and Play Season 9 is Spring Break.  This design is to center around your favorite (or dream) vacation spot.  It’s pretty much unanimous in this house that anywhere with an ocean and beach is the winning spring vacation spot!  So we started scheming about what we could make that included ocean/beach/shells/boats/etc.  That’s when it hit me that the Frances Suzanne Flip This Pattern for March is the Beachy Boatneck Tee from Blank Slate Patterns.  Okay, this is coming together, I thought!  Then I found some totally awesome vintage seashell graphics over at Graphics Fairy, and knew I had to do something with that and the Betty Skirt, newly designed by the Shaffer Sisters that I’ve been wanting to sew.  Combine all these and you get…

And also…

Wait a minute, hold on!  There’s a B-O-Y in those pictures and this Skirt Fixation after all, what’s going on?!?  Well, there’s a story there!  I decided since I’d never had much luck sewing on knits before and also I wanted to try the graphics transfer before putting the seashells on the skirt, I’d prototype a shirt for Annie’s little brother, “David.”

Hi David, nice to meet you!  David is 2 (almost 3) and was so pleased to have Mommy make him something that it nearly broke my heart!  He kept saying, “Now we can go to the park and take pictures of me by the water too!”  (I didn’t think he even noticed that Annie was reaping all the benefits of my sewing!  But he was clearly referring to Annie’s rain coat I made for PR&P Signature Style.)

David loves his “Boat Shirt” and asks to wear it every day!  The only problem with the patterns from Blank Slate Patterns that I’ve come across is not really a problem with the pattern, but with my kid’s heads!  I know my kids have huge heads because I birthed them!  Just get out your sewing tape and look at the difference between 10 cm and 15 inches.  Thank you very much!  So if your kids have larger than average heads, make sure you widen the necks of patterns.

We had another photo shoot planned for these outfits, one more beach-y, but the weather just was not cooperating!  So this post will be updated when we make it to the other location!

I also whipped up a beach bag for Annie and David to collect all their seashells and other treasures at the beach.  This was an afterthought when I found this fantastic piece of fabric as I was organizing my fabric recently!  (What have you found recently in your fabric stash?  You need to do that to prepare for Challenge Create: Adult Edition Week 4 Theme, you know!)

It’s like walking down to the beach, and I can’t decide which side I like better~what do you think?

More about each piece in the spring break beach outfits.  The Beachy boatneck Tees were really simple to make!  I was so glad for all Melly Sew’s tips about sewing on knits on both the pattern and on her website.  I not only liked the finished product, but I sort of enjoyed myself!

I was glad to have prototyped one for David first, because I learned a few things.  For one, the slight yellowing on the iron on graphic in this before picture washed right out, but I learned not to iron so long!  And also because I picked out a difficult material for Annie’s shirt.  I found and fell in love with this navy ruffle knit from JoAnn Fabric’s.  But I’d never sewn on ruffle fabric before, so this website was helpful.  

One thing I did that made all the difference was to tape the ruffles down in the direction I wanted them to go before I started sewing.   Then all the ruffles ended up facing down, and none accidentally sewn up.

David’s shirt doesn’t really have any “flip” aspect other than the boat graphic ironed onto the front, but Annie’s shirt is “flipped” by not only using ruffle knit fabric, but also I used the ruffle sleeve from the Josephine blouse pattern.  It makes this shirt so wavy and flow-y like water; and that fits great with the spring break theme, too!  

The Betty Skirt is a darling little skirt to begin with, and I sewed the gathered version.  Since I was using a white linen, I decided to line the skirt part, and this was really easy to do.  (The yoke is double layered and didn’t need a lining.)  Then I ironed on the seashell graphics, and added four navy blue buttons to give it a sailor skirt look.  The Betty Skirt was really easy and fun to make, and I can’t wait to make the other versions, too.  The Shaffer Sisters really did a great job on this skirt and need to keep designing more skirts (and other patterns too!) 

There were so many beautiful vintage seashells over at The Graphics Fairy, that I didn’t have to repeat any shells around the whole skirt.  

This ended up being a really fun project, the Project Run & Play themes are so inspiring, and Annie (and now David!) are really reaping the benefits!

I’m linking this post up to Frances Suzanne’s Flip This Pattern, and also Project Run & Play Spring Break Theme.

How about you, where are you going for Spring Break, and what are you going to wear?

Make it beautiful,

Audrey