Thanks in advance to my friend Heather for inspiring me! She is an awesome seamstress and crafter! I love to talk all things craft, homemade and blog with her. I keep telling her she needs to start a blog to share some of the incredible work she does! You would be amazed by her talent! I am. My other inspiration is my Mother. Growing up my Mom made a lot of my clothes and I loved it - even though we give her a hard time about the amount of double knit we wore as kids! I really just blame it on the 70s!
For the past several months I have toyed with the idea of trying to sew a dress for my daughter. I have seen numerous posts about the pillowcase dress and how easy it is. My husband gave me a sewing machine a few years ago (after extensive hinting by me). Up to this point I have sewed exactly 2 things - pillowcases for a couple of giant floor pillows in our living room and a pillowcase for the body pillow on my daughters bed. So why not give a pillowcase dress a try - I mean, I have proven I can sew a pillow case! Hee hee!
So I headed to JoAnn's and found this awesome floral fabric and picked up a great pink and green ribbon.
I pulled out that sewing machine that is collecting dust and set out on my journey. On a side note, I think I need a name for my sewing machine. I have big plans for lifelong friendship and my besties all have names. I guess that will have to wait as I can't wait to share my dressmaking skills!
Here's the fabric!
I had archived a couple of patterns for pillowcase dresses and found that the guidelines provided by Sew Delightful was perfect because it helped me size it for my almost 6 year old. Then this week over at The CSI Project Sarah from This Crazy, Blessed Life shared her version of a similar dress that included an elastic waist. This was exactly what I was looking for as I was concerned that making a pillowcase dress for an older girl might look a bit big and bulky.
I have no sewing education, no really experience but a desire to give it a try. Straight lines are great so I decided to just go for it. At best I would be out $5 in materials. Much to my delight, the project turned out wonderful. My daughter loves it and so do I. I can't wait to go back to the fabric store. I have my eye on this awesome madras plaid and want to make another dress for my daughter and even attempt to make a pair of matching shorts for my son (although I will try with a cheaper piece of fabric first). I found a great pattern for a simple pair of flat front shorts from Made.
Wish me luck!
