New Grandma Wants to Sew!: New beach cover-ups

Two years ago, I made the three older girls beach cover-ups, poncho style. For the detailed methods of making these, you can read about them here and here. These are all now outgrown. (Maybe one or more might work for the new baby next year.) So, three more needed before our family holiday.

Here are examples of what I ended up with.

To find out how to make them, read on.

This time, I decided to make straight cover-ups rather than the diagonal poncho style I made previously. However, the method was the same as for the earlier ones, so check out the earlier post, here. But read on for more details of how to cut out the straight across style, this shape:

My first challenge was to find the fabrics I wanted. I still hanker after some patterned terry towelling I bought donkeys' years ago, from which I'd made myself a beach poncho. The last cover-ups were made from plain terry towelling by the metre, which at the time I'd only been able to find in white, pink or blue. Boring! I'd made little appliqués to liven them up, and used some gingham bias binding.

Oh, and one of them wasn't made from towelling at all, but of some printed cotton fabric as it was more of a matching sun cover-up to protect fair shoulders, rather than doubling as a top to put on over a swimming costume to get you dry.

I searched and searched for printed towelling, and though I did find some, it was all very expensive, and / or had to come from abroad, which meant highy postage costs and a long delay before I could get started.

Eventually, it was my local store's on-line site that produced these two fabrics. Hooray!

Neither of them was EXACTLY what I wanted. Both are single sided, so no loops on the inside - this may defeat the object for a beach cover-up, but we'll see. The floral one is also not really a towelling, it's more a bobbly jersey. In other words, the loops are very fine. But that's what I've got, so onwards.

First some measurements. I measured all three girls from nape to back of the knee. They were 28-29" (about 72cm); 25" (64cm) and 22-23" (57cm). So this gave me the finished lengths. I doubled this so I could cut on the fold across the shoulders.

For the width, I asked them to play aeroplanes, and measured wrist to wrist. These measurements were almost 35 1/2" (90cm), just over 34" (87cm), and 32" (82cm).

Having cut the cover-ups out as folded rectangles, I cut curved corners. I think this looks nicer, but also makes the application of bias binding tape much easier. I bound the outer edges with bias binding tape.

As you can see, I do this by pinning and sewing first to the inside, then turning over and sewing on the outside. I find I end up with a neater finish this way. This made sure the edges were protected against further fraying while I woman-handled them further.

Next, I cut the necklines. There is a lot more detail about this on the earlier post. But here are the measurements I used (on all three).

I bound the necklines in two parts: first, the 'V', from the top edge round the bottom (stretching it round) and back up to the other top edge. Second, I used a piece of tape roughly as long as the rest of the neckline plus about 26" (66cm). I found the midpoint of the opened out tape, and pinned this to the centre of the back neckline on the inside. I then pinned the tape round on both sides until I met the binding of the front neckline, and sewed along the crease. With the tape still opened out, I part-finished the two ends like this:

You can see I've clipped the corners to reduce thickness, then folded it back in (see the horizontal crease?) before folding the whole tape in half. I then sewed all the way from one end to the other via the neckline on the outside so the whole tape was doubled over.

On this one, I made a little appliqué, having cut a little seahorse off the end of some fabric I was going to use for shorts.

You can find out how to make your own appliqués here. They are so expensive to buy.

Here's the first one almost finished.

The final thing was to add a little tab to each side (a spare bit of bias tape doubled over) about 6" (or 15cm) from each shoulder 'seam' at the front. (There is no seam, of course - just fold the bottom edges together as in the picture above to measure down your 6" down the side from the top.) This was so that I could add snap fasteners to hold the back and front together, creating an 'armhole'. It's optional, but I find it helps keep the cover-ups better in place.

The second and third ones, I made from the floral material. One had red bias binding, to match the flower centres. The second had blue bias binding, like the striped version, but I had almost run out of bias binding, So, with much shorter strings, I added red bobbles on the ends, which meant they could be loosely knotted rather than tied in a bow. These were just stitched through and through and attached to the ends of the strings.

As the two floral ones had more busy patterns, I didn't add appliqués to these two.

Here is the largest and smallest so you can see the difference in size.

And they did get worn! Here are the girls covering up after a session in the pool, sharing a coconut. (Two are wearing theirs back to front, but that's fine - they still work!)

Finally, I used the remaining striped towelling to make a hooded beach towel for Ada. She is less than a year old and can bearly stand up. So I thought a beach cover up would not work for her - but a beach towel would.

It is shown here with the two sides folded in, but the full width is about double. The hood was double thickness, with an alphabet trim on the hood. As with the cover-ups, I put double-fold bias binding all the way round the towel part. The hood didn't need it, as it was made on the fold.

There are several patterns / designs free on the internet for making a hooded beach towel, some examples below. But most of them use actual towels - too expensive for me, and anyway, I had the towelling already. I made the towel part single layered but doubled the hood, with the fold on the front / top. Because it was doubled, I was able to encase the top middle raw edge of the towel between the two layers. The remaining raw edges, as with the beach cover-ups, were bound with double-fold bias binding. I had just enough of this aqua coloured tape.

You'll get some ideas for measurements from these examples, but for the record, mine was:

Towel part, about 130cm x 72cm (or 51" by 28" in old money)

Hooded part: c 53cm x 72cm (21" x 28") (to be folded in half lengthways)

These examples will give you the method for making the hood.

Finished beach towel folded ready for packing.