I don’t blog anymore.  You all know that.  But when DANA from Made Everyday asks you if you want to sew with fabric that she designed and be part of her blog tour, you blog.  It’s what you do.  Well, at least, it’s what I do, so here I am!

Dana’s debut fabric collection for Art Gallery is called Boardwalk Delight and was inspired by all the things that she loves about summer.  And it really does encompass the fun, carefree, beachy spirit that I love so much about summer too!

I knew the bright, festive colors would be something that my daughter would love too, so I took the opportunity to do some back-to-school sewing for my kindergartner.  The fabric I used is called Candy Dots and the colorful dots reminded me of all our favorite fruit sherbets.  It also screams, “Party!” Dontcha think?

The fabric is a crisp and smooth quilting cotton that washes and sews really well.  It’s lovely to wear too!  Though I should have anticipated this, the print is on white fabric so it’s quite light and I wasn’t sure what kind of garment I could make that wouldn’t be too see through.  The original plan was a simple skirt, so I figured if I gathered enough fabric, it would be fine.  And I think it worked!

This is the most simple skirt, much like this tutorial I made a ridiculously long time ago.  I cut two rectangles the whole width of the fabric (about 44″) and sewed those together.  So I ended up with about 88″ of fabric around a 21″ waist!  It gives it a very full look and a bit of spinability.  That’s a word, right?

When I tried the skirt on my daughter, it felt a bit too long, so I added a pintuck pleat to shorten it.  And I like that I can always unpick it and let it down as she grows taller!  And it gives the skirt a little bit of interest as well.  A happy accident.

After I finished the skirt, I had some extra fabric leftover and I wanted to make something else.  So I cut some strips on the bias to make a pair of Purl Soho City Gym Shorts.  This is the first time I’ve made these shorts and I love them so much!

They are fast and easy to sew, they require such little fabric and the pattern is free!  And they are super cute!  Yuki has pretty much refused to wear shorts for the last couple of years.  I think she fell once while wearing shorts and scraped her knees up, so she thought it’d be safer if she wore leggings all the time instead.  The funny thing is, she wears skirts and dresses all the time!

Anyways, she’s coming around to wearing shorts and she loves these so I’m thinking of making a few more.

This pattern doesn’t necessarily highlight the cute Candy Dots fabric, but it compliments it quite nicely and adds a nice little pop 🙂

Photo credit: Dana Willard

I feel like this collection is basically Dana in the form of fabric.  It’s cheerful and bright, stylish and spunky.  She’s done a brilliant job translating her summer fun vision to reality that we now all get to enjoy.  Dana is such a pioneer and has always given so much to the sewing/blogging community, so I’m excited to see that she keeps taking on new endeavors like designing fabric.  The Boardwalk Delight collection includes 10 prints on cotton, 3 knits and 1 canvas, making it extremely versatile – you can use it for almost any project you can think of!  All of the details and a fun video are up on Dana’s site.

And check back in weekly on Made Everyday for recaps of all the blog party posts, like Anna’s Poolside Tote, Rae’s Ice Cream Dress, and Amy’s Summer Star Quilt.  There are a lot of great bloggers and projects coming up throughout August, so stay tuned!

Happy summer, folks!  Until next time 🙂