Eat. Craft. Sow: Tutorial Wednesday

The girls have fallen in love with the hibiscus flower after we had a little holiday up at Noosa. The units that we stayed at used the hibiscus as there logo and they were planted all around the grounds.

Of course when we returned home and went to buy some new plants for our front garden, they had to have their own hibiscus plant.

Then I remembered that I had picked up a pink sarong from the charity shop for 50 cents ages ago.

Originally when I picked it up I thought I would just make a pretty dress for Miss J as pink is her favourite colour. But as soon as Grace spotted the hibiscus well I wasn’t going to get away with just making something for just one of them.

So to put the thinking cap on. It had already been cut for some reason so it was not big enough for 2 dress in the pattern I had in mind. Then the light bulb went off and I decided to make them a dress each using the ‘Pillowcase style’ that I had made when participating in a charity drive making dresses for “Dress a Girl Around The World”.

Its such an easy pattern that even a beginner can make them. You can find all the details for dress sizes here and the instructions here.

To get the two dresses out of the sarong I just folded it in half length ways and then measured and cut it in half.

As it was already hemmed on 3 sides I just overlocked (you can over edge/zigzag) along the one side, folded together, pinned and overlocked the two sides together on both dresses.

For the arm holes I measured 3 inches in across the top and then 4 inches down along the side and using a bread plate I marked and cut the arm holes.

To gather the top of the dress, I folded down about 1 inch across the top and sewed. I did this for both the front and back of the dress. Then with a 7 inch length of elastic, I used a pin to push it throw the hem and sewed on both ends.