Gifts for baby girls: Geranium Dress

In the past two weeks, three close friends have given birth to baby girls.  With all the SOSM excitement and our vacation before that, I'm super behind in making gifts for the new babies.  And since I can't visit them empty-handed, I need to make something quick so I can hold those beautiful little bundles!

The first outfit was just finished, a variation on Rae's Geranium Dress (shirt length), with matching bloomers.  How much do I love that gray striped fabric (Dandi Flight by Jay-Cyn) for the skirt?  There was only 1/2 yard in my stash, purchased as one of many fabrics for a big boy quilt I have to make eventually, but I think this dress is a much better use for it!  The darker melon color of the midriff was leftover fabric from the necklines of my recent Roller Skate Dresses (here and here), and the bodice was the "runner up" fabric that I didn't end up using for that application.

For my version of the Geranium, I color-blocked the bodice and added piping to further define the midriff section. Because I wanted to keep the piping continuous all the way around, I had to alter the construction sequence a little bit.  In the end, I think it turned out really cute and worth the effort. Back view, with some vintage buttons:

The little bloomers are from a pattern in Lotta Jansdotter's book, Simple Sewing for Baby.  I didn't have enough melon colored fabric left to make the bias tape for the elastic casing and used white muslin instead.  I'm going to consider it a design feature--kind of ties in with the white piping :)

Unfortunately, I won't see baby Iva in this outfit for a while--it's size 6-12 months!