Take a grandparent’s pillowcase…

My youngest niece turned 1 last week, and the week prior I suddenly had inspiration as to what to do for her birthday.

Popping up all over the internet are pillowcase dresses. Just do a search, there are blog posts, youtube tutorials, you name it! And they all say how easy it is to do. Using vintage pillowcases with pretty patterns look so cute and girly, and it looked like there were only a couple of seams to sew up. Surely I could do that!

The op shop that I usually go to doesn’t have much in the way of vintage prints and fabrics, plus it is still closed for it’s Christmas/New Year break. But I remembered seeing a pretty pillowcase somewhere in my travels around our home.

Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but it was being used as a rag in the garage.

So I gave it couple of days soaking, then washed it, and it actually turned out all right 🙂

All the tutorials I saw were made from a standard pillowcase, but this was a boomerang one. And it had *ahem* ‘garage’ stains on it. So I looked at it carefully to find the best bit to use. Luckily my niece is still a toddler, so it didn’t need to be too big!

So, after procrastinating as long as I could, I took the scissors to it, cutting off the end I would use, and unpicking the frill to use around the bottom of the dress. I pulled my trusty, but underused, sewing machine out of the depths of the cupboard, and started work.

I procrastinated some more, but got it all done in 3 hours (including procrastination time!).

Then I looked at it, did a little happy dance for completing it, and thought about where I’d found it.

So back it went into a bucket to soak again. Then it got washed again. And all was good…

I was worried that it would be too small, but it turns out it is still a bit big for the little poppet. I hope she will get plenty of wear out of it.

As for where the pillowcase originally came from – when my mum saw it, she immediately recognised it as one my grandmother bought for my grandfather (her parents). My grandmother died in 1988. I hope they look down on their great, grand daughter and appreciate her wearing something so special.

Have you seen or made a pillowcase dress? How did it turn out for you?

Did you know that if you don’t personally have any little girls you could make a pillowcase dress for, there are still plenty of girls around the world who would love to have a beautiful dress. Two groups I found that co-ordinate sending packages of dresses ( and pinned to my Craft board on Pinterest) are Dress a Girl Around the World (here is the Australian page), and Little Dresses For Africa. If you are interested, you might find a group near you 🙂

* Some of you may have noticed that I originally posted this on my other blog, before I started this one. I have copied it here because it belongs here 🙂

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