Sleeveless Pool Wrap

When I saw the tutorial for the pool wrap on the Sew Like My Mom blog, I knew it was something I wanted to try.  The perfect opportunity presented itself with my friend hosting her daughters birthday at an arcade/water park in Burlington, IA.

I will say this project was somewhat difficult for me – I definitely won’t be doing it again without a sewing machine!  Still, it was worth the effort to make something so adorable.  I have practically nothing to add as the tutorial was excellent.  If you haven’t seen her version, you really should look.  It’s precious!

I was short on supplies and time, so I had to deviate from the tutorial in a few areas.  First off, I had very little velcro – only a scrap, in fact.  Without the recommended amount I made due with my tiny squares of material.  I measured it out so the velcro would fit the size Zoey is now, knowing I could move it later.  You can also see my ribbon is higher up than hers – that was because I had a really thick elastic band.  I’m actually more fond of hers in that regard but, ah well!

Now we come to the big deviation – no sleeves.  As I said, I didn’t have an abundance of time.  I reached this point at about 11pm the day before the party.  I obviously couldn’t run over and try the wrap on Zoey to see where to put the shoulder straps and I was nervous about eyeballing it.  I was stressing a bit when John asked, why do you need shoulder straps?  Well to hold it up I said, but a little bit later that came back to me.  If I fashioned a way for the wrap to be tightened I could do without straps for the time being.  Awesome!  I dug through the craft bag for some ribbon and went to work.

Priority one was deciding where the ribbon would go.  Easy – along the bottom seam of the fabric strip!

I wanted it to tie on the velcro side so I set about measuring my ribbon.  The towel was something like 26″, so I cut a piece long enough to wrap around the outside once with some to spare (we’ll call it Ribbon 1, about 32″), and a smaller piece (ribbon 2) to be sewn on the inside.  If that doesn’t make sense don’t worry – I’ll explain!

Just a note, make sure you pin and look before you cut.  You don’t want to have too little ribbon to go all the way around.  Anyway, notice the end of ribbon 1 is hanging down – that’s no accident.

See how the pins stop a few inches short of the velcro?  I wanted to allow room for growth with this wrap, as we all know kids grow like crazy.  As I saw it, the easiest way to do that was to sew ribbon 1 most of the way around, but leave some free so the wrap would be adjustable.  I sewed as far as the last pin and let the rest hang.  While your swimmer is small the slack makes for big bows, and it gives you the ability to adjust with their growing bodies (if this still doesn’t quite make sense, keep reading!).  Now let’s get to the inside..

Time to elaborate on ribbon 2.  In this picture I still have ribbon 1 pinned – that made for some prickly sewing, but I was able to use half the thread and sew both pieces on simultaneously.  That was awesome (for me) because as I’ve said before, I do all my sewing by hand.  I left both ribbons off of the last pin for demonstrations sake.  Remember how you folded over the end of the fabric strip and sewed it down earlier in the tutorial?  I folded over the end of ribbon 1 (see it hanging out?) and stuck it on that pin, then stuck ribbon 2 on top of it.  It ends up looking like this:

Is it coming together in your mind, yet?  The loose end of ribbon 1 is tucked and hidden under ribbon 2.  On another note, when you begin sewing it’s easiest to start at this end and go to the other, so you get ribbon 2 sewed down first.  Once you reach the end of ribbon 2, you only have to worry about ribbon 1.  While I used white, pink, and red thread for the rest of this wrap, I chose black thread for the ribbons because they’re a dark color.  Go with whatever works for your project!

Alright – our ribbons are sewn on.  Now what?  Nothing!  You’re done!  Get your little swimmer out in that water and soak up some sunshine!

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~ by Ashlee on February 15, 2012.