Reversible Geraniums

I obviously love the Geranium Dress pattern.  My mother-in-law requested specific dresses made with the geranium pattern in a dark denim with pink piping between the bodice and skirt.  I thought it would be fun to make the bodice lining a pink denim and then figured, I was this close, I might was well “line the skirt” and put navy piping between that bodice and skirt and make it reversible!  Yes, it made for a thick dress, but it’s winter and it was denim for a semi-fancy occasion (they also wore the dresses to their cousin’s sip-and-see.)

Before hemming

 

If you have ever made a geranium dress then it’s pretty easy to see how you could make another skirt instead of closing off the bodice by stitching in the ditch on the right side.  The dilemma then came on how to hem it.  I wanted to figure out a way to hem them together without hand sewing the entire hem.  My hand sewing is not so great (I’m thinking of hand sewing my quilt challenge so I can work on that at the same time).  I even emailed Rae to ask her opinion.  We arrived at the same conclusion, that either it would have to be hand sewn, folded in and then top stitched together, or sewn separately and then either tacked together or left loose.  I chose the last option.  I wanted to avoid topstitching together, which is what most reversible tutorials recommend, because these were for semi-fancy occasion and I’d have to chose one side to have contrasting thread.  I did let go of the idea of blind hemming both hems because I ran out of time before the event.  I made 4 geranium dresses essentially, so that would be 4 blind hems.  It would take to long to get it all correct measurement wise and press it exactly.  I’m happy with how they turned out!

 

I used Claire Shaffer’s Fabric Sewing Guide to help me with getting stitch lengths correct.  It helped. I used that for the coats too.

 

So besides making four geranium dresses put together into two reversible geraniums, I also made a red corduroy long pant romper for a friend’s toddler for Christmas.  That made me busy enough in December.  Besides thinking about quilting, I’m also putting together fabric and patterns for the girls spring/summer wardrobe!  So exciting!  Isn’t it wonderful being the personal couturier for two little girls?!

Oliver + S brought up an older blog entry/interview with a sewer in Canada, Marie-Michelle Melotte, who uses high-end fabrics for girls dresses.  It was a very interesting interview.  I especially liked her talking about using the texture of fabric to bring visual interest instead of print.  I love print, but would like to try more textures too.