KCW Day 7: Upcycled Geranium Dress

I am rounding off KCW with a geranium dress! I’ve only made one of these so far (still not got around to blogging about it!) but it was made from an awful polyester, that was a nightmare to sew. A break from my usual eco-sewing, but it was a last minute (up til 3am sewing!) dress for Lily to wear for Chinese New Year at her school.

I had this really great shirt in my upcycling box and I was wondering what to make with it, I thought possibly a pair of coastal cargos, but I have been really lacking time this KCW, so I decided to stick with a pattern I knew. I also liked the idea of having a button up geranium dress.

I used the button up part of the shirt for the back and I kept the original hem of the shirt, for ease. As you can see in this picture, I created a single pattern piece for the back. I overlapped the back bodice pattern piece with the back skirt and I trimmed off the excess. I attempted to centre the pattern piece on the centre of the buttons but I don’t think it quite lined up… ah well! You can just see the contrast fabric on the inside of the pockets in this photo too. I found myself repinning these pockets about four times, as I had a mental block, which way round they needed to be attached to the dress. I actually had it right the first time, annoyingly!

For the front, I used an off cut of my organic voile in paisley print (should be back in stock in the near future), which is also a little throw back to my own long-sleeved organic voile washi dress. I didn’t have quite enough width of shirt for the full skirt, so I took some of the edge and then only used one pleat either side of the centre line. It’s also possible that I sewed the pleats to the wrong side, so they are facing out instead! I love the slimmer sillhouette that the pattern adaptation has produced. It also ended up being slightly longer than usual, due to my winging my adjustments!

I did line the bodice (front and partial back) with undyed organic cotton batiste. I completely forgot that I would need access to the button holes on one of the back bodice pieces. I have to say that there are some really dicey buttonholes, going on in the lining!!

 I found the 4T didn’t leave much room for growth, in the other geranium, so I made a 5T this time around. Thankfully there was still lots of ease in the dress for Lily to run and play!

You know I used my overlocker as much as I could for this project too, right? I swapped back to the natural coloured organic cotton sewing thread of course! I was a bit worried about my fabric choices, as the voile and batiste has an undyed base, where as the shirt has a white base, but I think I got away with it!