Dress A Girl Around The World

Ah, we step right into summer in Minny, with a hot, humid day reaching into a tornado warning evening. I do love a good storm. But no walk tonight, a little too green out for me. I turn up the tv so I can hear the weather, Hennepin County is under a tornado warning, and I would like to know if and when I actually do need to grab Kitty Vegas and head down to the basement.

In the meantime – a new volunteer sewing project. While the storm was brewing, I cut out and sewed together one of the dresses for the Dress A Girl Around The World project.

It’s a very simple premise: to ensure that every little girl in the world has at least one dress of her own. These dresses accompany missions groups to – everywhere. I’m including the website address here.

And it’s a very simple pattern called a pillow case dress. The idea being that you could up-cycle these dresses from a gently worn pillow case. However, cute fabric can be purchased very reasonably here, and I’m a textile lover anyway – I have a lot of fabric to use, and I’m happy to buy more as needed. I have nothing against up-cycling either, in fact, I appreciate when things are given a new life. Anyone who wants to is sure welcome to make their dresses from old pillow cases, I would just rather use new fabrics.

I also wondered about the simple pattern, and why both organizations that I planned to donate to (Dress A Girl Around The World and Little Dresses For Africa) ask for the pillow case style dress. However, the more I read about it, the more it made sense. Many of these dresses end up packed in a mission volunteer’s luggage, to be dispersed upon arriving at their destination. So they need to be lightweight, easy to pack and carry.

I hadn’t made one before, but the directions were very simple. If you don’t start with a pillow case, you basically make a simple tube dress (measurements and instructions are available from www.nancysnotions.com ;click on the link at the bottom of her website, called Creative Kindness). There are a number of different dress sizes you can make, from the same simple directions.

I made the version where you topstitch bias tape around the armholes, stitch a casing at the top front and back, and then thread either bias tape or ribbon through the casing. The ribbons tie into a bow at the shoulders, creating the top part of the armholes.

I will probably add a pocket or some other kind of trim to these dresses as I go, but for this first one, I mainly wanted to see just how to put it together.

Easy-peasy, very quick, and a lot of fun to make. These – along with my Spill Catcher project, will keep me busy for a while. Websites are below, if anyone wants to read more about these volunteer projects.

www.dressagirlaroundtheworld.com

www.littledressesforafrica.com