The Geranium Dress + Sunki Leggings

Having made a Geranium dress for Indigo and Iris, I knew Tarikua needed one of her own.  This dress was just the inspiration I needed to take a break from dropped bodices and peter pan collars and make one more Geranium dress.

Of the three bodice options, I decided to go with the sleeveless one.  I was looking ahead to cooler fall temperatures and felt it would layer particularly well.  (Realistically, though, we have a month or two of warm weather still ahead of us.)

This was my first time using piping.  I contemplated (and I do mean contemplated) using flat piping.  I spent way too long thinking about it, in fact.  I knew it would be easier to use flat piping.  But I also knew I wouldn't like it quite as much for this dress.   I really like the dimension the cording adds.

I decided to venture into new territory and try the piping with cording, instead of flat piping which I've used before.   The selection of pre-made piping at our fabric stores was so limited, so I knew I'd likely be making my own.  I kind of feared piping, but I shouldn't have.  It was easy and really empowering.

Grrrrr!

The accent colors in this fabric were difficult to match.  I couldn't find a muted solid cotton that matched exactly.   So I went bold with orange.   I lucked out and found some bias tape that matched the orange woodpecker.

I opened up the binding and ironed it so it folded in half instead of fourths and then added the cording, using a zipper foot.  I trimmed the seam allowance to 1/2" so it was easy to add to the bodice by simply aligning its raw edges with the bodice's raw edge.

I went with orange buttons to match my piping.  I thought it was serendipitous to find both buttons and bias binding that matched this shade of orange so perfectly.

With fall and winter on the horizon, I sewed another pair of Sunki leggings, this time in mustard.  They came together beautifully and this knit was a dream to work with.  I had added a bit of length to the pattern, but Tarikua is such a little peanut that they ended up being way too long.  I cut off at least two inches.  And they are still long.

Given we're a couple of months away from leggings weather and my kids are growing like weeds, I might wait to take off any more length.  Being I'm new to knits, I also want to wash them a few times to make sure I don't get any additional shrinkage before I cut off any length.  For now, we're going with the ruched look.  ;)  Tia doesn't seem to mind a bit.  Actually, she loved these leggings so much and talked about how comfortable and soft they are.  She didn't want to take them off!  There might just be knit pjs in our future, too!