Little Geranium

I've been sewing lots of gifts lately, which means I can't post what I'm making until they have been given!  But I attended a baby shower last weekend so I can post about this Little Geranium dress now--I'm so excited about it!

The pattern is from Made by Rae, and the 0-3 month size is available for free!  She's a genius, because after making this sweet little dress I am totally interested in buying the pattern that includes big girl sizes as well as lots of modifications.

It was so fun to sew up a little newborn dress though--I didn't really start sewing for Little Sister until she was around 9 months old, and even then I wasn't following patterns, so this was my first time!  I have to hold myself back, because making these tiny little sweet dresses could be addictive, but I know that when my kids were that little I wasn't dressing them up in pretty things very often.  I should be making more practical things like leggings and onesies, but this dress was so fun to make and admire!

To go with the dress, I made a pair of Heirloom Bloomers from This Mama Makes Stuff's free 0-3 month pattern.  Since I used fabric rather than vintage handkerchiefs, I added a little extra length to allow for hemming.  I also did 2 rows of shirring with elastic thread around the leg openings rather than sewing baby elastic on.  They won't hang down so much under the dress when a baby is wearing it, but I wanted to show them off too :)

I was totally in love with this Japanese fabric--it's got a little texture like a linen, but it's softer.  And isn't that cat print just fantastic?  I actually bought it to make something for myself, but couldn't resist turning it into this dress.  I went back to the store to find some more of it for me but it was gone!  Oh well--totally worth it.  And I loved the natural colored cotton crocheted lace trim from my stash with it.

The biggest challenge of this dress for me was the buttonholes.  I had completed this perfect, lovely little dress and I was so afraid I was going to ruin it by messing up the buttonholes!  I usually avoid buttons wherever possible, but I have to say that while they still aren't my favorite, I now know that I CAN do it when I have to.

A better look at the texture of the fabric, too

My Japanese sewing machine came with an automatic buttonhole foot, but for the life of me I couldn't get it to work. I watched a ton of youtube videos in case I was misunderstanding the pictures in my Japanese machine manual (obviously I can't read it!)  I tried making so many practice buttonholes!  Eventually I gave up on the automatic buttonholer and just measured really well and used the manual buttonhole settings.

And they came out fine!

Now I just have to wait for the little one to arrive and hope that it fits her :)