smells like Geraniums

Last week we got our first kids pattern in, yay! I find a lot of children's dress patterns a bit frumpy, a bit ruffled and a bit over the top. The Geranium by Made By Rae patterns is none of that. it's basically the Washi dress in kids version. (and without the elastic shirring!) You could have a matching set if you felt inclined. Beauty of this is you can use so many different fabric's, i love patterns where you can use medium weight quilting cotton- it just opens up the scope of possibility. 

There is 2 different versions in this pattern, it can be made into either a dress or top with three different sleeves versions and three different neckline and the option to make it ruffled or pleated.

I opted for faux capped sleeve. basic neckline and a ruffled skirt , mainly because I've done much gathering and never pleated before and the ruffled sleeves looked a bit beyond my easy, quick Saturday morning frame of mind- and pocket version.everything has to have pockets!

I've made up the biggest size, which is a 5 but it is on the smaller size (I was making it for my skinny minnie) so may need to add extra to the top bodice if need be. I used a meter and a half of the Cats heads in blue by Wee Wander Gallery, the good thing about this fabric is the heads are small enough that I didn't stress out too much about pattern matching. I can be lazy with stuff like that. 

The construction is straight forward, As usual I used the Swedish tracing paper to begin with (used on the GBSB didn't you know) The rest was a breeze, unless you count when I read the pattern wrong and closed the wrong bit of the bodice - (then lost the seam ripper for a full 20 minutes- That made me loose it). Obviously I'm an impatient person and I only ever skim pattern instructions- always resulting in unpicking, (I NEVER learn).

The funny thing about this dress is I thought it wasn't looking great through most of the sew, I thought it was looking a bit bulky and not quite right, but once I pressed it and held it up- as if by magic- it looked fab. Even inserting the buttons gave me no grief. I wanted to put in cute little pencil buttons but they protruded and it's not really the type of dress for that, plus it would just get tangled in hair.

Happy with that, There is a size 6-12 year old version available, I'm trying to get my hands on it locally (and not importing it from the U.S), So hopefully it will appear on our pattern page soon.

Other shop news.....

Tula Pink announced last week that there will be 3 new additions to her Hardware range, and we are now taking pre orders for these! They are due for release in July- so not too long now. Available will be a pair of 6" scissors, a pair of 4" micro cute scissors and left handed shears.

For all pre order information click on the images below! I'll write a more detailed entry when the stock arrives.