DIY Rash Guard

I have to say, sewing with swim fabric is much easier than I thought! If I can do it, you can do it too.

For my first swim knit project, I set out to make my own rash guard for sun protection. My husband and I were planning a trip to the Great Barrier Reef and I burn like crazy so I wanted to be covered up since we were going to be snorkeling for the better part of 4 days. That's a lot of sun exposure! And I can wear them on our future beach trips in the US, especially the second day when my shoulders are already pink!

To make my rash guard I used a shirt pattern I had made already, the Ellie and Mac Going Home Sweater. Don’t let the name fool you, while you can make it using sweater knit you can really use any knit with 50%+ stretch and then it’s just a raglan pattern with some fun additional options.

If you want to make a rash guard for yourself, I would suggest using any shirt pattern that has sleeves the length you want and you have made before. Then you know what size to make it!

Adding a shelf bra/bra cups
So, I tried to add a shelf-bra to my rashie and it was pretty much a disaster. I tried only putting it in the front which seemed totally logical at the time but of course it then pulled the side seams to the front and cause a bunch of weird wrinkles and I ended up cutting it out.

I did not try again but if I was going to, I would make it go all the way around and only attach it to the exterior at the top. If you try it and have success, please leave me a comment as I'd love to know!

Here are some some photos of what mine looked like. It's a layer of swim lining and power mesh and I tacked bra cups between the layers. I think it would also work better with a set in sleeve top rather than a raglan, as attached at the top of a raglan it's all along the sleeve and this probably isn't ideal.

Layers and fabric
Since it was my first time using swim fabric, I ordered all the things. I got swim fabric, swim lining, power mesh and swim elastic (for my matching bottoms). This way I could play around with what I liked. The swim fabric I used was rated SPF 50 and I bought it all of my supplies from fabric.com for this project.

I ended up lining the fronts of my rashies with swim lining but I used lining and power mesh on my matching suits.

Alterations

Normally you want a rashguard to be snug and would size down from your usual size, however, my swim knit only had 40% stretch and the pattern asked for 50% so I decided to make my test rashguard in my normal size and see how it came out.

For the most part this worked out ok. The test rashie was in the black and white print and it's pretty good. There was one main problem, the armhole/sleeve was a little small since my fabric had less stretch and I have fairly large upper arms.

I also took in the side seams in the waist/hip about 1 size. For non-swim, I had graded them out but I wanted something tighter fitting for swimming so they were a size smaller than my measurements. Overall, it was a very wearable test!

Rashie selfie!

For my second version (blue firework print), I lowered the armhole about .5" and made the sleeve a little bit bigger. I often struggle with how much bigger to make things when they are too small, if anyone has any tips for how they decide how much bigger to make the next one, I'd love to hear them!

It was chillier than I expected in Cairns and I ended up wearing a wet suit for my great barrier reef adventuring but my rashies still got some use around the boat and I look forward to taking them out to the beach here in NC!

Rashie in use! I look like I'm holding on to my husband for dear life, don't I?!?

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