My idea of vacation is spending time on the beach. In the water, to be exact. This June I had a fabulous time at Pompano Beach at Beachcomber Resort and Villas.
So, when I planned my vacation, given it's a hotel, I had to have some wrap dress (or two) so I can put it on in the room, easily take it off on the beach and jump in the waves to my heart's content.
Cover up beach dresses I saw in the store were all ugly. Then one day I saw something on Facebook in my news feed that caught my attention. It was a very simple concept, just a rectangular piece of fabric with loops for arms on two corners of it.
I forwarded that picture to my daughter as I planned to take her to the beach with me. She was not impressed much, and busy with wrapping up her medical school work and preparing for graduation.
The online store had dressed in Small-Large sizes. I graduated that range some time ago, so I decided to make me one myself.
Here are some pictures of me in that dress:
Then a couple of weeks later my daughter sends me a picture of... - you guessed it, a slightly modified version of this same dress - it was very long and the photographer knew what they were doing when they took the picture:
So, when I planned my vacation, given it's a hotel, I had to have some wrap dress (or two) so I can put it on in the room, easily take it off on the beach and jump in the waves to my heart's content.
Cover up beach dresses I saw in the store were all ugly. Then one day I saw something on Facebook in my news feed that caught my attention. It was a very simple concept, just a rectangular piece of fabric with loops for arms on two corners of it.
I forwarded that picture to my daughter as I planned to take her to the beach with me. She was not impressed much, and busy with wrapping up her medical school work and preparing for graduation.
The online store had dressed in Small-Large sizes. I graduated that range some time ago, so I decided to make me one myself.
Here are some pictures of me in that dress:
Then a couple of weeks later my daughter sends me a picture of... - you guessed it, a slightly modified version of this same dress - it was very long and the photographer knew what they were doing when they took the picture:
Yes, it was from Victoria Secret catalog - but I was not intimidated at all!
Actually, the pictures of me in a brown wrap dress show the second beach cover up I made for myself. The first one was pink, and I was not sure if I will find pink fabric for my daughter's dress, so I simply took my pink dress and made her a dress. Here's she happily wearing it in Pompano Beach, FL:
I realized, it was shorter (much shorter, actually) than the dress in VS catalog, so off to the fabric store I went. Here's a picture of both of us in our beach cover up wrap dresses:
...and a close up selfie of my daughter wearing the long orange one:
I also found out why that online store did not have bigger sizes that Large.
You want to know why?
Well, those loops stay very well on bony shoulders of slim young ladies. I have round shoulders (love them!) and the loops kept sliding off of them. Annoying...
So, last weekend back to the sewing machine I went! With some new fabric too :-)
Here are pictures of my brown animal print dress after I removed the loops and used pieces of fabric which cross on my back instead:
And the new blue beach cover up wrap dress:
I love my new beach cover up wrap dresses! Planned to wear the blue one to my friend's pool party last weekend, that did not happen, but I still loved the process of making them - part of being happy is doing what you love as you know - well, I love sewing!
Here they are - my two custom made creations:
