Saturday, January 08, 2011

Pillowcase Dress

I love the look of these dresses and finally decided to make one. I didn't have any pillowcases that were cute enough to use for a dress that I was willing to cut up. So I just picked some fabric from my stash, sewed a tube, and hemmed the bottom. This is approximately size 6, but could easily fit a smaller girl due to the adjustable straps. It would end up a couple inches below her knee instead of right at the knee like the rest of my size 4 and 5 dresses. It could also be used by bigger girls as a top or over pants. The adjustable straps are about 10" long so there's a lot of room for growth.

I used these directions that I found from a swagbucks search. Her instructions are really easy to follow. (I copied them into a Word document if anyone's interested so it prints out on only 1 page.)

Traditional pillowcase dresses make a casing on the top front and top back and thread the ties through these casings. This can create a strangulation hazard, however, so I like her way of doing it better. She inserts an elastic into each casing, sewing it in place at each end. Then either make a casing for each armhole and thread the ties through the casings or sew on double fold bias tape, extending by 10" at each end to make the ties.

I didn't bother to print out the instructions so by mistake I made the elastics 9" each instead of 6". I think it works anyways (I'm certainly not about to rip it out to fix it!)



I feel like it needs something. Maybe I should have enclosed the hem in the double fold bias tape too? Or does the fabric have enough detail that the dress doesn't need anything else added to it?

I also made a sewing apron which turned out awesome. I'll take pics and post soon.

p.s. I do not take credit for the colour of my kitchen wall. That was our landlord's mother's choice. Definitely not mine.