My FAVORITE beach in the world…so far (and a new bikini to wear on it)

Hello friends! I hope the Swim SewAlong that I did a while back has continued to inspire you to sew your own swimsuits, I know it has for me!

Since we’ve been chasing a consistent 75 degrees, I feel like swimsuits have become a type of year round uniform, so there’s really no reason to stop making them, is there? Plus, they take up so little storage space in the trailer, they’re almost “free” in an economy of volume in my 400 square foot rolling home.

This set is made from the Blue Palms matching boarshort and swimsuit print from the Fabric Fairy, and I was really excited to sew it, because I don’t often find coordinating swimsuit and board short prints that don’t have to be pre-ordered.

With our mobile lifestyle, pre-orders are a non-starter, because I can’t guarantee where we will be 8-10 weeks from now to receive such fabric (sometimes I don’t even know where we will be tomorrow!).

But, I’ll happily take the trade-off for the chance to explore all the beaches I can find, and I think I might have found a new favorite: Curry Hammock State Park in the Florida Keys. Just looking at these pictures (which we took a few months ago) has me yearning for that view again!

If you’re familiar with the keys, then you’ve probably heard of the more “popular” state parks down there, like Bahia Honda, or John Pennekamp, both of which have their own virtues, but I’ve decided that Curry Hammock is the best and most underrated. It has super soft sand, a lovely mangrove paddle trail, and a sandbar about a mile off shore to anchor at and splash around. On the day we took these photos, we met up with a group of other families to explore the park, and we were all blown away by the natural beauty around here.

The moms and dads took turns watching the kids while the other group paddled out to the sandbar, and it was such a blast! The kids enjoyed finding some giant hermit crabs, digging in the sand, and playing “king of the paddleboard”, which was really just a SUP wrestling contest and quite entertaining to watch.

This swimsuit, which is a Styla Patterns Brookings/St. Tropez top paired with a Greenstyle Moxi Shorts (sewalong HERE) bottom, performed admirably during all the activities of the day.

Construction

I followed the tutorial on the Little Lizard King blog for mashing the two patterns together for the top, and I love the end result.

The construction process had me scratching my head a few times- its fully lined inside, and some of the methods they used to do this seemed more suitable for woven patterns than knit ones, but in the end, it all came out really well, and feels very secure.

I could dive into the ocean a bunch of times (or get pushed off that paddle-board), and this thing wouldn’t budge an inch, and I think the inside looks quite lovely for its full lining.

Changes & Future Modifications

One minor regret I have is with the strap topstitching- I do wish the straps had some more elastic inside- the way they are sewn, the topstitching goes on the fabric itself, since the seam with the elastic in it becomes the center of the strap, and I’m not in love with the way this limits the stretch and recovery of the sides of the straps. I think next time I’ll just omit the topstitching there, since its more decorative than functional, and I’m concerned that these stitches will pop over time.

I absolutely love the depth of the neckline, the design lines of the back, and the wide bottom band, which is still plenty wide despite me shortening it about 1.5″.

This is another small change I would make to my next St.Tropez/Brookings mash- reducing the width of the bottom band, and changing it to a more traditional underbust elastic.

I don’t typically find the need to shorten the torso of tops, but the bottom of this one as originally designed hit me in an unflattering place and restricted my movement/breathing a bit. Fortunately, that was easy to change at the end of the process, so it’s now quite wearable.

The bottoms are a pair of Moxi Swim Shorts, modified to have a drawstring in the waistband (using metal grommets), and with stretch woven for the bottom and swim fabric for the waistband. They are incredibly comfortable, and fit perfectly, as expected since this is about my billionth pair of Moxi shorts.

I’m looking forward to wearing this suit quite a bit more in the coming months, and even ordered a bit more of this fabric to make some matching bottoms, since 1/2 yard was just enough to make this set and now I want a pair of matching briefs. I like the ones included in the Little Lizard King St Tropez set, so I’m going to try those out soon.

Well, that’s it for this set- but I’m dying to know what your favorite beach is! I’ll add it to my beach-bucket-list!

Happy Sewing!

Sarah