I have been promising Linda something of her own to wear for a while now. She’s my middle child age-wise, but the biggest size-wise, and I have such a short attention span.
I’ve spent a lot of time looking at ways to repurpose pillow cases. Lots of good ideas out there, and making dresses for little girls has always been one of the more popular ones.
This is my contribution, using a pillowcase my ex-husband left behind (it’s been in my dresser, taunting me with its resemblance to a skirt, for almost two years now):
As you can tell, the top is crocheted, & the bottom is a pillowcase. I don’t have a pattern for this, but I’ll tell you about the way I did it.
I used a normal-sized jersey (t-shirt material) pillowcase, Peaches ‘n’ Cream yarn, an H hook, & white embroidery floss (as I don’t know where the hell my white thread is).
First, I held the pillowcase up against Linda. Full-length would have made an ankle-length skirt. Great for winter, not for summer (in Texas, anyway). Half-length would have been about an inch above the knees. Not too bad, but I’d have had to make a bigger bodice and Linda needs long dresses because she’s too young & too bouncy to sit in a ladylike fashion.
I crocheted a double-chain just long enough to go around her (it’s a wee bit snug now, but I know from experience with the yarn that it’ll loosen up in time). Joined into a circle, added two more rounds of single crochet. Put it around her and counted stitches so I knew how wide to make the front of the bodice. I did one row of that number of sts, then reduced on the first & last stitch of the next row…did that for a total of 8 rows (which is: one even, one reduce). Added on either 4 or 6 more at the top, even. Single crocheted down the side, half-double crocheted around the back, single crocheted up the other side, and did a picot/slip stitch across the top. Then I went in to the first tie–61 chains, then slip stitched back down the back side of the chain. Finished it off, put another one on the other side, & then weaved in all the ends. I thought about doing a decorative bottom border as well but decided against it because I didn’t want to have more ends to weave in. I hate weaving in ends.
That was the easy part. Of course, the pillowcase is a LOT wider around than my daughter. And I don’t have any straight pins. It would have been a lot easier with straight pins. Basically, I basted the side seams on the pillowcase to the ends of the bodice (by which I mean the part that goes up) and made little gathers on either side of this as I sewed. This was easy the first side, but when I backed up to do the other side it rapidly became a pain in the butt because I had to work right-handed in order to keep the right side facing me and tell what the heck I was doing.
I was NOT going to do this again on the back. So I smoothed it out and gathered all the extra fabric up in the center. Marked it with needles (I have plenty of those). Grabbed another needle already threaded, and gathered the fabric in the center back. I’m not sure how clear it is in that picture (I really need to clean my monitor), but I love the way that turned out. It was also much easier to sew.
Honestly, I really like the way it turned out. The gathering of the material started out pretty haphazardly, but I figured out a way to make it look intentional!
I really do like the way it turned out. I am no sort of seamstress (which is why the connecting seam is a little raggedy), but this was a pretty quick project no less and Linda is thrilled with it. Which is what really matters. She’s already asked me for permission to wear it tomorrow!
Sabra Crochets 