Geneva {A Showcase}
I don’t know about you, but I love a pattern that has limitless possibilities for design. Geneva fits that bill PERFECTLY. For todays showcase, I’m going to show you four different dresses from the same pattern in three different types of materials. I’m Amanda Cotton from Sewing Cotton, and this is my first guest blog post for Simple Life.
The first Geneva I sewed up was sleeveless bodice with a center panel and a simple vintage length skirt. I thought the center panel was the perfect place for hand embroidery, so I added “You are my sunshine.” If you’re going to use the center panel for embroidery, don’t forget to account for seam allowance when centering your design on your pattern piece!
I used a pretty cluny lace trim to frame the center panel and soften the contrast between the white panel and the navy gingham. It turned out so very sweet. That center panel is such a great place to try out a variety of embroidery techniques and patterns!
For the second dress I went with double flutter sleeves and a center panel and a vintage length skirt with a center panel. Do you recognize the fabrics? They are from Katie Skoog’s West Palm collection with Art Gallery Fabrics. I love how both of these prints coordinate so beautifully and are showcased so well on this Geneva Dress. I don’t know about you, but I am not confident in pattern mixing. In this collection, Katie made it easy! The whole collection coordinates with everything, so I chose a large print for the main portion of the dress and a smaller scale print for the center panels.
The center panel in the skirt was such a sweet addition to this dress – it gives me all the vintage feels, and I’m a big fan of vintage!! This was also my first time doing double flutters and I love that Geneva has them included as an option! Just one more great way to highlight contrasting fabrics!!
Next, I wanted to try out the sweet short sleeves with the square neckline, pintuck bodice, and a simple vintage length skirt. I have a thing for toddlers in vintage skirts and Geneva nails that perfect above the knee vintage length that I’m completely obsessed with. Lets talk about those sleeves – They have these little cutouts and are my favorite part of this dress. I’ve never seen another sleeve like this, and they really are so charming. For the first two passes, I used a basic woven cotton, for the third pass, I decided to branch out.
I’ve been spending a good amount of time this year to learning to sew with other fabrics, and I was very curious to see how Geneva would look in linen. This is a lightweight Essex Linen from Robert Kaufman; its definitely more weighted than the typical woven cottons I’ve worked with, and do you see how it transforms the look of the dress? All of these photos were taken on very windy days – Can you see how the linen holds its structure a little better than the first two cottons I used? I wondered if I would need to decrease the length of the skirt to make it fit the bodice, but it gathered just fine.
For the final pass, I decided to try the long sleeves with a simple bodice and a dress length skirt. The sleeves on this pattern!! I’ve loved every one of them and the long sleeve is no exception. Like the short sleeves, it has a cutout opening, but the long sleeves have something the short sleeves don’t: BOWS. They are the sweetest addition to a basic sleeve.
I appreciate that this dress also has the option of a simple bodice because this sweet floral needed to be in the spotlight. This dress, I sewed up in a Sevenberry cotton lawn from Robert Kaufman. The lawn is thinner, softer, and more drapey than the other fabrics I’ve used. Lawns are some of my favorites to work with. They feel so luxurious against your skin, and the drape is lovely. In the photos, you can see the drape and how the dress just falls so dreamily – in the wind, this dress wanted to fly away completely! My sweet girl was the only thing anchoring this dress to the ground!
And there you have it. One pattern, four ways, and in three different material mediums! Have you sewn up Geneva yet? What are your favorite materials to work with?
