KCW Day 6

Yesterday was day 6 of KCW and the day that gave me the most trouble. The week had been going well. I sewed three items that all wound up getting good reviews in the end from the kiddies. I was feeling pretty good. I wasn't sure what to sew for Day 6. I went into KCW with no real plan at all so I decided to pull inspiration from fellow bloggers. As I read through my blog feed, I came across this really cute knit Geranium dress (and hilarious post about photographing her adorable littlest) by my friend Monica . Perfect! The first Geranium dress that I made I actually did in knit so I figured it would be super easy, right? I even had two old tee shirts of mine in my up-cycle pile that I could use for the project - score! Everything was coming up Millhouse until I started to sew.....

Okay so it doesn't look terrible.  But the sewing of it kinda was. I originally planned to make this a short sleeve top. And I even sewed sleeves onto the top. I even sewed one sleeve on twice (that happens when you don't realize you have NO thread in your bobbin!) Seriously, how the heck did I not realize that?! Anyway, I re-thread the bobbin and added the sleeve. Then I tried the bodice portion on Erin and it looked terrible with the sleeves. I didn't adjust the pattern for adding sleeves so it was too wide and looked awkward, So I cut them off, leaving a little bit of the sleeve so I could create a facing to finish the armscye. Okay not the look I was going for but it looked better without the sleeves.

So then I go to attach the skirt to the bodice. I gather the skirt a bit, pin it to the bodice and baste it on so it will stay in place so I can serge it. Somehow, after basting, there are puckers and pleats created in the bodice because I appartly gathered the skirt too much but didn't realize it when pinning it on - really at this point I should just give up. But no...what do I do? I decide the heck with it and just serge the damn skirt anyway, thinking, oh I don't know, that it will miraculously make the pleats and puckers go away. Yeah that worked well - smh!
I decide to just shut everything off, pour myself a pint glass of wine and go catch up on CSI on my DVR. But the top is staring at me, laughing if you will, that it has defeated me.  So back on the machines go and out come my scissors to cut the skirt from the bodice and re-sew. I didn't even pin this time, just matched the side seam of the skirt and bodice up and fed it through the serger. Turns out I didn't need to gather the skirt at all. It was pretty much the same size as the bottom of the bodice.
Thankfully I didn't need to hem the skirt since I used the existing hem from the tee shirt. I could only imagine what would have gone wrong next if that had to be done. Erin got to try it on this morning to take some pictures. And while it sort of looks like it fits her here:

You can tell here that I need to take it in like an inch on each side.....sigh
(side note: Erin sang and acted out Let It Go during the entire photo shoot.)

The Details:
The Pattern: Geranium Dress size 4t  (should have done the 3t)
The Fabric: Green knit - old J. Crew tee, Navy blue knit - old Gap tee
Trims/Notions: Just some thread

Notes: I created a facing for the neck opening instead of lining the bodice like the pattern suggests. For the skirt I just cut the bottom of the shirt off about two inches under the arms.

So I think I'm going to take it in on either side to make it a little more fitted. Or I just might let it go.....