Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Wedding Gift to a Dress

They had sat in the Linen Closet for twelve long years.  I had faithfully carted them from house to house to house to house as we moved.  White one-hundred-percent cotton wrinkle-prone sheets with pale yellow pillow cases, they were a wedding gift from Great-great-aunt Rachel S.  I knew we would never sleep on them but was reluctant to part with them (they were, after all, from her own linen collection).

Then I saw a friend's Facebook post about how she had taken her Grandmother's vintage pillowcases and transformed them into darling dresses for her girls.  My pillowcases weren't quite as beautiful as her embroidered heirlooms, but they were still vintage--about 1970s vintage.  So, with a little help from April W. in pointing me in the direction of a good blog tutorial, I got to work.

I ripped the floral trim off of the sheet and trimmed down one of the pillowcases.  Using jumpers which fit the girls well, I cut armholes and then a very large neck.  I sewed on the collars, inserted elastic into the neck casing, finished of the sleeves, and that was that!  A very easy, fun project with a memory of Aunt Rachel, too.



The girls aren't too certain about the shawl collars but they'll learn to like them (I hope).

4 comments:

laura said...

how adorable! What a precious way to use something so special!

April said...

I love your version of the pillowcase dress! The little cowl-neck line is so pretty. Awesome :) I think you should host a little sewing party... give us the run down on how you made so sweet dresses!

Homegrown Roots said...

Very cute and what a lovely way to use those sheets! :)

Unknown said...

Great back story...and like I said yesterday...the dresses are quite sweet. Good job all the way around! Glad to see your creative juices flowing.