Geraniums

I know I'm a bit late on this old band wagon, but what with have boys, it's a bit hard to keep up with girl fashions. Still, you'd have to live in a hole not to know about the Geranium. I've also been a bit of stinge with not buying patterns I only thought I would use a couple of times, but then I remembered these ladies write their lovely blogs for free, and that if I bought their patterns, I'd be supporting them as well as getting something nice. So I paid up, got the fabric and set off.

See what I made:

 
 

Two little dresses and a shirt (not a geranium - it's actually from the Sewing for Boys book, which I've had for a while and largely ignored)

 

 

 So, little shirt, meant for an 18m old, modelled on my 3 year old. I think there's going to be room for growth. I really liked this pattern, which came together quickly and looked very professional when I'd done. In my imagination, I'll be making more of these. In reality we'll see.

 
 

Oh look, there it is again. I particularly like that it looks like a proper shirt with a granddad collar, but doesn't have buttons or anything. Makes it super speedy!

So then I made two dresses with the same range of fabric, which was fun. Although I would say, it's worth consulting the pattern to see how much you need before you blithely say to your fabric toting pal, 'oh, I'll just have a yard of each'. Cos 7 year old girls are tall, and take a lot of fabric. Anyhow, I think it looks nice with the contrasting bits. Just as well!

I lined the bodices with the same fabric as the trim, and put a bit of piping in to tie them together.

 

I also made the gathered skirt for the younger girl, and the pleated one for the older one. I like how they coordinate but aren't too matchy. And they all have pockets. I swear, I'm never sewing anything without pockets again.

 

Another learning point: don't try to size up patterns. I enlarged the bodice slightly, but then forgot about the skirt, so the pleats didn't line up too well. And then the next week, Rae released a bigger size anyway. So I've bought that too.

 

It was a lovely pattern to follow, and I'm happy with the dresses and shirt. The instructions were way better than the ones you get in the paper patterns, so it was easy to follow. I just need to be more attentive!