When I was living in Clarksville, MO there was this amazing little shop called The Bent Tree Gallery. It was family owned- ‘dad’ made amazing, rustic furniture, ‘mom’ created all kinds of handicrafts and their daughter had her own shop making beautiful leather purses and other goods. Some of the many beautiful items I loved in the shop were these delicate little dresses made from vintage pillowcases. I never bought one but kept them ‘filed’ away in my mind as something I’d love to make if I had a little girl to make them for. And voila! I not only have a lovely daughter of my own but a pretty cute niece to make all kinds of girly things for. I’ve also been collecting vintage linens for a few years now= for no other reason than I thought they were pretty to have around. So all of these things finally came together recently and up to my sewing room I went!
I used this pattern from Bumblebee Linens and it was surprisingly easy. It suggested measuring your kiddo from her/his shoulder to where you want the hem to fall, but it also had a nice measuring guide if you didn’t want to measure, or like me forgot to measure your kid and just wanted to get started(@!) The trickiest part was working with the vintage fabric. The first pillowcase I chose was pretty brittle and I had issues with it tearing. I made a second dress that came out much better. I also wasn’t quite sure how to hem the armholes so I used a combo regular and zig-zag stitch. Here are some pics of the pillowcases I used:
I’ll be adding photos of the finished dresses soon but wanted to get this post up while I had the time. I’m thinking of adding some to my etsy site. Would you like a little pillowcase dress for a girl in your life?
My little friends 