Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Pillowcase Sundress

I went to the Spring Branch neighborhoood group today, a new group that just formed here in Houston. I had received an e-mail from a friend asking me to attend as she was putting on the program - 'How to make a little girl's sundress from a pillow case'. It sounded interesting so I grabbed a salad and went. What a fun project... made me want to have little girls in the family (just not yet).

Basically you measure up from the hem to a point just below the neck of the girl or use the chart we were given for different sizes and cut and the closed end of the pillowcase. Cut out arm holes. Make a casing in the neck and insert elastic into each casing (one front, one back) and secure the ends. Bind the armholes from one casing to the next using extra long bias tape which becomes the shoulder ties. Just adorable results in less than an hour. The pillowcases she used were from a local thrift store and had wonderful embroidery, ruffles and other embellishments on them. My friend also added several pieces of stash trim to them.

If I get pictures and the full instructions I will post them. One suggestion was that they could also be used by teens as tunics - a popular look these days. If the pillowcases you have are not wide enough at the hip they can be made shorter or with slits part way up the sides to give some extra room. Our neighborhood group is considering making them for the holiday bazaar run by the church we use for our meetings.

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