Project of Love

Ever heard of a dress made from a pillowcase?  Me neither.  At first I thought this was some kind of ruffly thing to put on my pillow in my bed.  Until I read about them from Kristen of We Are THAT Family.  She had heard about the non-profit group Little Dresses for Africa, which provides pillowcase dresses for girls in orphanages in Central Africa, and inspired her readers to pitch in and help provide. 

As Catz and I love to make things AND have a heart for orphans, this project was right up our alley.  You can find the directions through both links above, but I’ll give you a brief description ’cause it’s super easy.  And ’cause I’m nice that way.   Basically, you take a pillowcase and cut the seam end off leaving the hem at the other end intact.  {If you cut off the hemmed end then you might as well sit down and weep over the extra work you just made for yourself. Pay attention, now.} Then you cut a little quarter moon on either side for the arms.  At the cut seam end you sew a channel and slip in some elastic.  Next, you sew some bias tape along the arm holes leaving them open at the top to tie.  Mmm, I think that’s it.

And voila!  You have pillowcase dresses.  Aren’t they cute?  Catz and I just adore them so much we might make one for a little cutie we know.  {Shhh! It’s a secret!}  This time around we made 6 of various sizes, and we plan to contribute more dresses to LDFA.  Our goal is to each make 2-3 per month.  I know, that might sound low to some of you, but we actually need to continue a few important things around here…like cooking, homeschooling, photography classes, laundry, sleeping, eating, etc.    So I think our goal will work.  By the time summer rolls around again we should have a sizable number to send.

In case you’re interested in doing a project like this, you can use your own gently used pillowcases, buy them at thrift stores, or purchase them new.  As most of our linens have been either packed up in storage or given away in preparation for our upcoming year-long RV trip, and our local thrift store doesn’t carry linens, we went shopping.  Catz and I found the most reasonable prices and cutest designs at Walmart {no, I do not get compensation for mentioning this company}.  The cases we purchased came in little pouches, so we attached bias tape to those and made little purses/belly bags to go along with the dresses.  Don’t you love ‘em?  So what projects have you been working on?  I’d love to hear about them!

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