I like my cover ups to be able to be worn as a skirt, for walking on the beach and still getting sun.  But sometimes I want my belly covered, so I need it to be able to be a dress too.  So I figured out an elastic banded cover up that will fit beautifully however I choose to wear it!

Are you ready to make your own??

::You Will Need::

at least 1 yard of lightweight knit fabric

around 1 yard of 1 inch thick elastic (this will vary depending on your size)

sewing machine, and other sewing necessities

::Get Cutting::

You are going to need to figure out some of your measurements for this part.  But don’t worry, no tape measure needed!  With the elastic band, and forgiving knit, it’s quite simple to get a great fit.

Wrap the elastic around your hips or just under your arm pits (wherever you think you will wear your cover up more.)  For me, there isn’t too big of a difference between the two so it is very easy to wear this either way.

Fold your fabric in half and lay it out flat.  Fold your elastic in half and lay the folded elastic at the top of the fabric in the center.

 Measure your folded elastic and add 10 inches to it.  This creates the wide flared bell shape to the cover up.  For a tighter fit, add fewer inches and vice versa for a more flowy cover up.

At the bottom of the fabric, mark your added length.  Draw a diagonal line connecting the top and bottom, creating a trapezoid shape.

::Time to Sew French Seams::

If you have never made french seams before, well, then it’s time to learn.  When making an unlined piece of clothing (or pillowcase or bag…) and you don’t have a serger available to you, then this is a great way to get a clean looking finish without having exposed seams.

First, and this will seem odd, place your fabrics WRONG SIDES TOGETHER.  Sew a scant 1/4 inch down each side.

To create a place for your elastic casing for the cover up, start sewing 2 1/2 inches from the top on each side.

Flip out your fabrics so that they are  RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER.  Sew 1/2 inch seam allowance.

**little tip**  I like to use my 1/4 inch foot when sewing my half inch seam allowance.  Since my 1/4 inch foot has the guide, I can put the old seam on the right side of the guide to ensure that the old seam is all caught in the new seam.  That is the most important thing when sewing french seams.  You don’t want part of the seam allowance hanging out of your new seam!

::Making the Elastic Casing::

Remember when you started sewing 2 1/2 inches from the top?  Well now it’s time to fold those 2 1/2 inches in half (don’t forget to tuck in the seam allowances!)

Press well.

Sew this folded part down, 1/4 inch from the edge.  This creates your elastic casing.

Attaching a safety pin to the end of the elastic, work it through the casing all the way around both sides of the cover up.

Once the elastic is all the way through, you will need to sew it together.   I like to use a zig zag stitch, and go over it a few times, just to be sure it stays sewn together!  We don’t want any dresses falling down, even if you do have a bathing suit on!

Hand stitch the openings closed.

::Almost Done::  aka Hemming

We are so close to the end!  You need to figure out how long you want your cover up to be.  Will you be wearing it as a dress?  Be sure it’s long enough to cover your bottom!  Mark how long you want it, add an inch and cut it to that length.

For me, I was able to get away without having to cut anything.  1 yard was the perfect length to make a cover up dress and maxi skirt.  If you want a shorter skirt, you will need to cut some length off.  

Fold the bottom under 1/2 an inch.  Press well.

Sew all around the bottom of the cover up. I sew my hem 3/8 inch from the bottom.

Ta da!  You now have a comfy, wonderful summertime bathing suit cover up.  Go, get your suit and sunscreen on and get yourself outside and enjoy being stylish poolside!

This year, I’m choosing to enter my Blackberry Winter quilt.   I made this quilt for the past issue of Fat Quarterly magazine.  The theme was modern meets traditional.

This quilt took a very traditional (been around forever) HST layout and put my own little spin on it.

I’m choosing to enter this in the home machine quilted category.  This past year, I have really focused on my FMQ skills (and have come a long way! Remember this?)

I quilted swirls and flowers in all of the gray/negative space.  On the big squares, I did really large loopy ovals and again, the swirls and flowers inside of those.  For the small squares, I left them fairly open, quilting just 4 large, connected swirls.

See past Blogger’s Festival entries here:

Fall 2012

Spring 2012

Fall 2011

I have also been sewing up some things for my little Etsy shop.  There’s not much in there, but after another shop update today, it’s getting more full!  I just listed a whole bunch of pleated zipper pouches (like my giveaway day item) as well as card wallets.

And among all of this “must do” sewing, I have a fun little side project going for me!

This will (one day) become a Maple Leaf Rag Quilt from the book Material Obsessions 2.  I’m having fun playing with the tiniest bits of scraps to make this!

So that’s about all that’s been going on in my little corner of the world.  I’ll be sure to stalk all of the lovely pictures and happenings going on at quilt market this weekend.  Are you going?  If so, take some good pictures for those of us #notgoingtomarket.  And if you are staying home and on Instagram, be sure to tag your goings on with #notgoingtomarket.  After all, misery loves company!

First, I wanted to say THANK YOU to each and every one of you who entered.  I was blown away by the amount of entries.  And all of the uses for zippered pouches were so fun to read.  It was pretty obvious that we all love our zippered bags!!  In fact, it made me want to make one for myself!

Congratulations, Joyce.  You will be receiving an email from me shortly!

And if you didn’t win this time around, there will be more giveaways here very soon!  And in the meantime, my Etsy shop is freshly full of some pleated zippered and quilted pouches.    with more to come soon! 

 Thanks again!

A great big welcome to everyone visiting for Giveaway Day.  This is my space full of finished quilts I have made, tutorials, patterns, giveaways and all things quilting and sewing!

I know you have a lot of fabulous blogs to visit today, so lets get to the giveaway, shall we?!

I love making a good zip pouch.  There are so many uses, that you can never have enough!!

I also like them to be big enough to be really versatile. So I created this pleated pouch to be big enough to carry whatever I might need: makeup when traveling, on the go sewing supplies, my tablet and other everyday necessities.

This pouch has a bright orange zipper with zipper tabs to match the bottom.  This inside is lined with a bright, cheery yellow dot.

The boxed bottom helps the pouch stand on it’s own, even when full!

Here’s my phone to show the scale of the bag. See, this little guy isn’t so little! (yet not too big where it wouldn’t fit in your purse)

Ready to enter for your chance to win?!

::To Enter::

• leave a comment telling me what your favorite use for a zippered pouch
• be a follower (and leave a second comment telling me where you follow:  Twitter: @kd_quilts Instagram: kd_quilts   Facebook  Bloglovin  or other blog reader)

Good Luck!

Last weekend at the Virginia Beach Modern Quilt Guild, we had a pillow cover swap.  The way we do our swaps is we have an assigned secret partner.  We then make the swap item for that person, using their favorite colors/designs.

If you couldn’t guess, my partner wanted blues, gray and white.  I chose to make a giant wonky star.  I love stars for pillows. Well, I love stars for anything really.

I chose to quilt the pillow cover with loopy stars in the background and pebbles in the star. The pebbles start small in the points and then get bigger at the middle.

It’s finished with a simple envelope style, my favorite really.  If you are ever wanting to make a pillow, but have no idea what to do, check out I’m a Ginger Monkey for her awesome pillow closure tutorials!

The pillow I got in return was made by my friend, Chen.  Can you tell she knows me?!  Perfect colors, a star and some of my favorite prints!  You can’t see the back, but it’s the lavender pearl bracelet, matching the pillow I made for my couch last month! I super love this pillow!!

And this meeting happened to be our 1 year anniversary!  I started this group before I even moved out here and am so thrilled with how it has grown and really come together.  There are some really talented gals in our group!  I don’t know what I would do without it!

To celebrate our birthday, I made a birthday cake, and Chen got makeup bags and samples and we made goody bags for everyone with a handmade pincushion.  A wonderful birthday party indeed!

Happy Birthday VBMQG!!

This quilt was one of my first finishes of 2013, way back in January.  I couldn’t wait to show it to you all, and now that the newest issue of Fat Quarterly has been released, I can!

I love Shelburne Falls.  I think it is probably my favorite Denyse Schmidt line, and that’s saying a lot considering how much I loved Hope Valley!

This Fat Quarterly issue is all about Traditional meeting Modern, and the fine line defining the two.  When I was thinking about the theme, I knew that Shelburne Falls was the perfect blend of modern and traditional.  These prints are so vintage, like a lot of her work, inspired by feed sacks but the colors she chooses makes the fabrics feel modern.  And the scale of her work always works so nicely in quilts.  She gets it.

I wanted the fabrics to speak for themselves.  The layout I created for these prints isn’t something Earth shattering, but I feel it blends traditional into the modern realm.

I tried out some new(ish) things when quilting this quilt.  I mashed together the swirls I love so much with some flowers and had a lot of fun combining the two designs!  As far as the prints, I wanted them to shine and have their own thing.  In the squares, I did this swirl thing, being a lighter design, to have the squares stand out.  In the open squares I did a loopy circle thing.  But I kinda think they ended up looking like Easter eggs!

Instructions to make your own Blackberry Winter Quilt (as well as seven other quilts, pillows, table runners and more) can be found in Issue 13 of Fat Quarterly.

There is something about this quilt that I was so drawn to. When all of the trips started happening, I was in NYC and remember thinking that I could not wait to get home and start one of my own.  And you better believe, the first day I was home I was chopping up 2.5 inch strips!

Aside from the actual quilt, another thing I love about it is the generosity and friendship that went into it.  Whenever I was cutting strips, I would cut double to give to a friend, and vice versa.  Although, I think she cut WAY more!

I found this print for the back at JoAnns.  I typically just use solids on the back of my quilts, but when I saw this print, I just knew it was going to be my scrappy trip back.

This quilt is 5 rows by 6 rows.  I really wish I would have made another row since I like super big quilts, but I wouldn’t have enough fabric for the back.  So I went ahead and just finished it.  It was also a lazy thing, I just wanted it to be finished!

I love the look of the scrappy trip quilts from afar, all spread out so that you can see the square designs.  I’m thinking I am going to start a new one, but a little smaller, to fill one of my walls that really needs some color!

We finally had our Madrona Road challenge quilt reveal this past weekend at the Virginia Beach Modern Quilt Guild.  I have had my quilt finished for what seemed like forever, and I have been wanting to show pictures of it for so long!  I wanted my challenge quilt to be completely anonymous so I didn’t post any progress pictures anywhere.

I named my quilt Any Road You Take, kinda playing on the Madrona Road name as well as my journey to VA and my belief that any road you take will lead you where you are meant to be in life.

When I started this quilt, I had NO clue what I wanted to do with this fabric.  I’ll admit, it’s not my favorite.  I like the prints and design, but the colors are not my usual, or even ones that I really like.  I loved the herringbone looking print, so I based my design on that.  I made lots of large triangle blocks and then scattered them every which way.

The quilting was done using straight lines, 1/4 inch apart.  I made an echo of sorts from the pattern.  I made the triangles, but alternated the lines going up and down and side ways to create a distinctinction of each section of quilting.

I chose to use whatever was left to make a super scrappy binding of all of the prints used in the challenge.

And to my surprise, I WON!  My quilt was voted first place in the guild’s challenge.  I was completely shocked.  There were so many lovely quilts.  The members of VBMQG did a phenomenal job with their quilts, and I feel so honored to have won the challenge!  Thank you, ladies!

March felt fakely productive on my quest to have more WIPs.  I would put quilt projects aside to work on little things, like zippy pouches and pillow covers.

I started a new quilt, while my Scrappy Trip is still sitting waiting to be quilted!

This new quilt, based on Sara Fiekle’s Maple Rag quilt from Material Obsessions 2, is going to be a super long term project. But not as long as my crazy hexagon project!

I plan on piecing a few star points here and there until I have enough.  A very no pressure quilt.

There was also another finish, I just can’t share it quite yet.

So that’s it.  As I said, March felt productive, but I don’t really know why.  I’m thinking I will need to start a few more projects for April!