The bug was to organize my linen cabinet. I pulled out my space bags of blankets and looked at all the baby blankets bemusedly. I certainly won't need these anymore, I thought with a mixture of relief and melancholy.
I sorted through the blankets and eventually found some blankets that I knew I couldn't give up. I will craft something out of these someday, I thought! But... I will need to do it soon because I have no more room in my craft bins for more STUFF.
I also looked at the sweet little crib sheets we bought for our kids and thought, Surely this cheerful fabric can be transformed into something?! (I love repurposing! It makes me feel really, really smart. We all like feeling smart, right?)
After a long hunt, I finally came across a pattern for a pillowcase dress and confirmed with my sister that she had used the same pattern with lovely results.
TheMotherHuddle has a really fun and easy to follow tutorial for the dress. She even has suggested adjustments for larger sizes as I needed for my daughter.
The only change I made to her design was just using one type of fabric, since the crib sheet I was using didn't match any other fabric I had. So, I didn't make multiple panels, just the back and front. As a result, the time and effort were far less.
I didn't take any pictures of the steps I took in making the dress, since I wasn't sure if it would be a total disaster.
All I did was cut off the edge and elastic around the sheet and took a seam ripper to the corners. I ended up with a fairly large piece of fabric that was more than enough for what I was making. I had to iron the heck out of it, too.
Once I was done following the instructions, however, I came out with a dress that keeps getting cuter the more I look at it! I'd say that was a job well done!
The dress will eventually grow with her and make a cute top!
I'm so excited about how it turned out, that I have plans for at least two more!
Lesson learned:
NEVER throw away old sheets (the cute ones, anyway)!
