Suit Up for Summer 2021

***Update!! The Diamondback Cami & Crop pattern is available now in the shop!***

You all know I love sewing swimwear, right? Well Raspberry Creek Fabrics’ Suit Up for Summer blog tour is on and of course it’s my favorite tour of the year. It’s been so hard to keep these swim makes hidden from you until it was time to share, so let’s jump right in!

Raspberry Creek Fabrics has the best swim and it comes in so many fun prints and solids. When I saw the cool blueberry print by Brittney Laidlaw earlier this season I was crossing my fingers that they’d offer it in swim. I knew I had to have it for Bean’s swimsuit this summer!

This print is stunning and the shades of blue really bring out her eyes. I love the scale of the blueberries as well. They stand out so from across the way you can still tell it’s a blueberry design.

I was originally going to pair the blueberries with the NEW Kelly green solid that they’re offering this year (shown above in the gingham print on Kitty’s swimskirt, but more about that later), but it wasn’t ready when I was choosing fabrics. I decided on the dusty olive instead and it’s PERFECT. I definitely need to get some more of that solid for myself, cause it is such a great color. I kind of want the blueberries for myself too, but that’s a different story, hehe.

As I’m writing this, I realize that I haven’t even shared with you my newest patterns!!! What?!?! It’s been such a busy time, that I completely forgot to blog about the Diamondback Cami & Crop and the Diamondback Leggings. ~~These patterns are both currently available through One Thimble ezine Issue 28~~ and they’re all about this cool overlapped diamond shape you see in the back of Bean’s suit above. It’s designed to use stretch mesh so that the diamond really stands out, but I love it in this Lipstick Fuchsia Microstripe. I turned the fabric on the bias so the stripes would be diagonals, and the effect is just as fun as the stretch mesh diamond would be.

The great thing about the Diamondback Cami & Crop is that it can work for swim without ANY CHANGES to the pattern. The cami is the perfect length for a tankini top and there’s already a built in shelf bra. I just used swim lining for the shelf bra and boom it’s a bathing suit!

Can you guys even handle how cute Kitty is in this little combo?!? I used the Lipstick Fuchsia Microstripe for the main part of her Diamondback Cami and the Kelly green and white Check Gingham for the bottoms and I adore how they look together. It really shows how using some simple coordinates together can look as amazing as one of the fancy prints.

I used the gingham in the upper back portions of the cami as well to bring the swimsuit together as a set. I think the blueberries would actually look great with the gingham coordinate, so when I make some more tops and bottoms to mix and match their swim this summer, I’ll definitely share that combo over on Instagram.

The Diamondback Cami & Crop comes in sizes from newborn to 16 years and uses fold-over elastic at the straps and edges. I recommend 3/8″ to 1″ wide, but I think for swim or for extra support (especially in the older girl sizes), the 1″ wide works best. You can tell it’s really going to keep everything in place while running around or swimming in the water.

For both girls I used the Classic Maillot Swimskirt which is FREE from my shop. Bean has just the swim bottoms without the skirt on top, but I’ll make her a coordinate with these fabrics which has a skirt too. I love that these looks could go from the beach to the boardwalk with the swimskirt/cami options.

Don’t these swim fabrics just scream summer to you?? I always love being on the Suit Up for Summer tour with Raspberry Creek Fabrics. Sewing swim is my absolute favorite and it really is like the big opening to swim season. And you can join in!! They are offering 15% off of swim with the code SWIMTOUR so order your fabric from Raspberry Creek Fabrics now! Well, actually you’re going to want to check out the rest of the tour first 😉