Dress a Girl Around the World

Posted by Auriol on Jul 20, 2011 in News | 3 comments

A little bit of History…..

Dress a girl around the world is campaign started by an American Charity called Hope 4 Women. Over in England Louise at Sew Scrumptious Blog appealed to fellow sewing bloggers to help make pillowcase dresses for girls living in poverty around the world.

So, if any of you lovely Groupon blog readers are savvy with the sewing machine then it would be great if you could knock up one, two or even three of these pillowcase dresses for a little girl. Please contact Louise at sewscrumptious.blogspot.com for more details on how to get the dresses to a girl anywhere from Malawi to Haiti.

How to make a Pillowcase dress

Materials:

• Pillow case (New or nearly new)
• Elastic ¼” or ½” width
• Double sided bias tape
• Safety Pins
• Scissors
• Sewing Machine

First of all cut along the top if the pillow case (where it is sewn together), then with the pillow case laid flat, measure J-shaped arm holes at the top corners (approx 4”x4” depending on the size of the dress)

Next, to make the casing (of the elastic for the neckline) turn the pillowcase inside out and turn the top of the cut edge over by ¼” and then another ¼” . Iron this down and sew along the seam, close to the edge.

Repeat this step for the back of the dress.

Now, cut 2 pieces of ¼” or ½” elastic 7 inches long. Attach a safety pin to each end of the elastic, from left to right pull one end through the casing, being careful not to pull it too far, attached the safety pin and elastic to the left end of the casing and continue to pull the pin and elastic through. Once you have pulled the pin out of the right hand side, pin it to the casing. Now you need to sew along the left and right hand ends to keep the elastic in place. Repeat this with the back of the dress.

Now using double-fold bias tape, cut 2 pieces approximately 34” long. This will bind the armholes and become the ties at the shoulders, so make sure it is long enough to tie a bow at the top.

Fold the tie in half to find the middle and then pin this in the middle of the armhole.

Then working outwards pin the open ends of the bias tape over the cut edges of the armhole and sew around the armhole and finish by sewing the edges of the ties together.

Finally tie your ties and your dress is finished!