Bakercourt - Knitting, Sewing, Crafting.: geranium dress

Again, again!

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

How is it the end of July already? Whoosh! The days are flying by. Soon we'll have a little itty bitty baby first birthday party to celebrate.

Isla's friends are all turning one, and this little miss got another dress for another party. Geranium Dress, how I love thee.

This time I made the basic dress with a gathered skirt and flutter sleeve and one enormous pink bow.

The bow was a source of great amusement and was absolutely covered in baby food before the day was out. I made the bow out of hot pink cotton, stiffened with interfacing and hand-stitched it on along the bottom of the bodice to one side. Ta ra!

This girl is very mobile. She's crawling and standing and shuffling along while holding on to things.

Every day I expect to her stand up and toddle over to me.

dress

Geranium Dress, The Second

Thursday, June 04, 2015

It's been a while since I've blogged - and it seems like even longer since I've been sewing/crafting/making. I got a bit carried away in deadlines and other unfun things.

Still, there was a bit of time to make another Geranium Dress. This time, for Bellie Boo - a friend's daughter who needed a pretty frock for a Christening Party.

I made the gathered skirt version with ruffle sleeves.

Ruffles! I used cotton anglaise which was a bit see-through so I added a double skirt, and lined the bodice with hot pink.

I added pink snaps to the back instead of buttons - so much easier. Love the pink on this dress. I used KAM snaps and pliers, I love that they're so sturdy and come in hundreds of different colours. I was skeptical at first but I've used them on dummy chains and they have outlasted the velcro I used for the last batch; impressed.

I hand-stitched the lining in place. It takes so much longer but is worth it. The front looks neater and the contrast stitching doesn't peek through. That's important when you're stitching hot pink in place on a white background.

Cute.

Have I mentioned how much I love this pattern? I've already cut out another Geranium Dress for Isla. It's so easy to use this as a base pattern and add on little bits and pieces to make it special - like the double skirt in this version, and the oversized bow I've planned for the next one.

baby

The Geranium Dress

Monday, March 30, 2015

The whole of blogland is awash with talk of Geraniums -- the dressy kind from blogger Rae of Made By Rae Fame. Geranium is a super-cute and beautifully-fitting pattern for a little girl's dress.

I couldn't not make one. Or at least try. I have made Rae's patterns before and they are so easy to follow and offer a beautiful fit - and this one is only $10, covering sizes 0 to 5T. It's a basic dress bodice and skirt with sleeve variations that you can mix and match to create a zillion dresses for your (*ahem* your daughter's) wardrobe. Isla's already wearing the next size up so I made the 6-12m version.

This little girl is very impressed.
LOOK AT THAT FACE. Aw. There is porridge everywhere, even after I cleaned her all up.

I made a sleeveless View A dress (there are two views, with multiple options to accessorise. Love!). I made the bodice out of Fabric Freedom Petit Fleur FF27-02 (grey background with pink, mustard and white ferns), and I made the bodice lining and skirt out of a contrasting solid lavender. Both fabrics are from Stitch.

The buttons are from my stash, and just happen to be all matchy-matchy. I have a giant bag of buttons and I pull out handfuls at a time to find some that are the same size (I don't subscribe to the school of thought that believes in matching buttons on a garment), so it was really just kismet that these three happened to be in successive handfuls and were the size I was looking for.

Can you believe these are my first ever buttonholes in the history of ever? I know. Zips? No problemo. Buttonholes? Excuse me while I hyperventilate about sewing and ripping into my already-constructed garment.

This pattern is AMAZING and EASY and ALL THINGS WONDERFUL. I really don't like that fastening the buttons makes the skirt cross over a little at the back, but a button placket or a zip would fix that, and is really just an aesthetic preference. The gathered skirt and moving baby do hide the cross-over nicely.