Sunday, October 17, 2010

PillowCase Dresses


It really wasn't looking likely that I would be able to mark a single thing off my to-do list today.    With my husband on his second week of 6 12 hour shifts, and a constant stream of phone calls, I couldn't seem to get anything done.  Finally, between all my 15 minute sewing sessions,
I was able to finish these two pillowcase dresses tonight 
*wheew* 

I actually bought the fabric for these dresses over the summer.  They aren't exactly fall colors, but I'm not worried.  Our "fall" doesn't start 'til January around here so Emmalee should have many more months to wear these. 

Pillowcase dresses are so very easy to make.  I made these two in a collection of about 2-3 hours, if you subtract all of the stops along the way today :0)  I didn't actually use a pillowcase.  I used fabric I thought was FABULOUS and cut it like it were a pillowcase.  I didn't really like the first one I made Emmalee a while back.  It was way too balloon-like for my taste.  I quickly fixed that by taking it in on the sides.  I took it in about two inches under each armpit, tapering it out as I went down the side.  That gave it a little more shape.  After that, I LOVED IT!!! 

Want to try one on your own?  Here are a couple tutorials I found. 

(she actually uses a pillowcase) Nice pics for every step

She uses ribbon through the whole top-I like the elastic thing in the other two, but this works great and is the classic way to make these dresses.

For each dress I used less than 1/2 yard of the dress fabric, then about 9" for the bottom fabric. The bloomers take 1/2 yard. Not bad, about 1 1/4 yards of fabric, easily costing less than $10!!!



Now that is affordable FUN!!! Really affordable if you actually use a pillowcase. I found some sweet and simple pillowcases at a garage sale a while back. They were totally vintage with hand embroidery of flowers and trimmed with lace. Perfect pillowcases for this kind of dress. Making these dresses really is addictive. Watch out! You better not try it. You won't be able to stop at just one!

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