Sorry Mr Bank Manager but it is for charity!

I happened to pass a Fabricland shop at the week-end and was brave enough to enter alone with 2 small children!!



I generally try and avoid Fabricland because the staff are always so miserable and I always find by the time I leave they have sucked the joy out of my fabric buying experience but as I was passing it seemed rude not to go in and have a browse. They actually appeared to have new staff too who had not yet been trained in the Fabricland scowl if you dare to ask them a question.

After buying 2 very large feathers to amuse my children (who then proceeded to run around poking them in peoples faces)

I thought I needed to buy a little bit more fabric to make some more pillowcase dresses for the 'dress a girl around the world' appeal. Fabricland is very cheap so I ended up with this lovely little stash. A gorgeous Cath Kidston like floral fabric at £3.60 a metre!!

Some lovely pink gingham at something ridiculous like £2.50 a metre

Lots of bias bainding at 24p a metre and some felt for Izzy

This pink rose netting fabric at the request of Izzy

and look at this....pre shirred fabric!! Yes pre shirred. You literally have to sew up one side and you have a dress. How easy is that?? This was only £5 something a metre. Bargain!!

I also popped into John Lewis as I was passing and picked up a metre of this gorgeous Amy Butler fabric (which was not cheap!) to make Izzy a dress.

 I also picked up a hem gage. How have I lived without one for so long??

I love buying fabric. It makes me happy!

My button swap parcel has now been posted. It was so much fun. I had to send at least 5 button related items including a lavender bag. Will show you what I sent when they are received by my swapping partner but heres a little sneeky peek

and look at the cute cushion my very clever mum made for Sam. He loves Bob the Builder!

He now sleeps with it every night. Thanks Grandma!

Things to do in the holidays

We love making stuff in this house so we were very excited when the lovely people at Find me a gift website reminded us that it was half term next week and asked Izzy and I to review one of their fun items designed to keep children entertained during the half term holidays. They always seem to know exactly the right thing to suggest and Izzy chose a paint your own wellies kit which she thought was hilarious! I have to say that it was nice to do something not sewing related for a change too!

The kit contains a pair of wellies and some little tubes of special paint which dries hard and becomes waterproof so that the designs last once your children start wearing the wellies and jumping in puddles! Perfect for any children that like art and drawing. You just paint your design straight on to the boots.

 Can you see the concentration on Izzy's face!

It was really good fun. Izzy had a bit of trouble with the paint at the beginning as it comes out of the tube quite quickly sometimes but that just meant that I had to help and I probably enjoyed myself a bit too much!! Izzy got the hang of it after a while though and between us we designed these fantastic boots. We are just waiting for them to dry so that we can jump in puddles tomorrow!

We loved this kit and it kept Izzy entertained for ages plus she will be able to use them and show them off for months to come! They cost £14.99 and can be found on the Find me a gift website here. There is also a version for boys or if pink isn't your colour!

I am also very tempted by these gorgeous mosiac kits. Izzy is obsessed by all things princessey and fairylike at the moment so thinking these might be a great stocking filler (yes I know its still only May!).

Enjoy the half term holiday!!

Every girl deserves a pretty dress (even Princess Jasmine!)

There has been a lot of talk of pillowcase dresses in my house recently. So much so that Izzy decided that Princess Jasmine should have one too. So here is the finished slightly bodged Jasmine sized pillowcase dress (sewing for Barbie sized dolls is way too fiddly for me!).

On to the bigger dresses...

Another 2 dresses today from the lovely Katie at Kotori Kits. Katie has already sent 3 dresses so has been incredibly generous. They are both gorgeous. I love the stripey fabric which really reminds me of the seaside for some reason. Really fresh and summery.

I love the little applique hearts which go all the way around the bottom.

And this little red stripey dress is so pretty with its co-ordinating band at the bottom and red ties.

Thanks Katie. I really appreciate your support. Katies website sells fab sewing kits including this very cute little dinosaur kit suitable for even novice sewers. I have a 2 year old that would LOVE that costume!

and I finally got round to making my second dress too! This fabric was from a pair of brand new ASPACE curtains I found in a charity shop a while ago. Sadly they didn't fit Izzy's room so I used the fabric for other things.

and I stole borrowed the bead idea for the ties. Its such a great idea.

My friends daughter Jessica received her birthday present today which she decided to try on straight away. A mini copy of a dress sent to me for the charity by Leanne at Leanne Woods Designs. Thanks Leanne. They both loved it and can't wait for some warm weather to wear it outside!

and finally did I mention that I was going to see Take That next week???? My tickets arrived today. Woo hoo!! I am sooooo excited.....

 

So nearly at 40!!

We're hurtling towards 40 dresses now with 2 new lovely dresses today from Jane who has a fab blog called Handmade Jane which is one of my favourites. She makes all sorts of fabulous clothes and I am in total awe of her dressmaking skills! She didn't disappoint with the pillowcase dresses either...

I love this fabric and the red gingham binding looks gorgeous with it.

and why didn't I think about putting co-ordinating binding on the hem? Genius idea!

Love this one too. The fabric is so summery and fresh looking with the white binding.

Lovely!

Jane also send me this fab postcard which kind of sums up my life (pre children anyway!!) Its going up in my sewing room.

Thanks Jane. Lovely parcel of goodies.

I also received another dress today which some of you might recognise?

Leanne sent me an identical dress for the pillowcase appeal which a friend of mine completely fell in love with. Its her daughters second birthday this week-end so I ordered another mini version from Leanne for her birthday present. She is going to be thrilled! Leanne has a lovely folksy shop called Leanne Woods Designs which you can find here. She even packaged it up in a matching pouch. How cool is that? Attention to detail thats what I like!!

I've had lots more interest about making more dresses so thanks to everyone who is blogging and tweeting and generally supporting the cause. Its much appreciated!

We're on a roll so lets aim for 100!!

I'm feeling motivated and inspired after the lovely Lucy from Tete en l'air sent me 3 gorgeous pillowcase dresses which brings the total to 36 and the very lovely Krysia informed me that she had another 16 ready to send me after recruiting her whole village to get involved!! So thats at least 50 dresses with lots more promised. But thats not enough!! I think we need to show people what we British can do. Lets try and get 100 dresses to send!! How fantastic would that be?? I'm extending the deadline to the end of June to give people a bit more time and next week on my week off I'm going to try and get some photos of all the dresses so far to try and drum up a bit of publicity via the local paper. Are you in? All ideas welcome!

Moving on to Lucy's beautiful dresses. What I love about all these dresses are all the added details like buttons and pockets. Gorgeous!

Lucy managed to do these little collage photos of the details on her blog which I loved so I have stolen them borrowed them to show you here. Hope thats ok Lucy??!

This pretty dress has a lace and ribbon trim and 2 pretty little gathered pockets

and this lovely yellow dress has red buttons and ric rac and I love the little floral pocket.

I really love the pockets Lucy has made and will definately be making them like this in the future. So much prettier that the square pockets I would usually do. I have got so many new ideas from all the dresses I have received. Each one is so different and unique.

Thanks Lucy. The dresses are beautiful. Check out Lucy's lovely blog here

So how about it everyone? Could people blog/tweet/facebook about the appeal please and encourage their friends to join in. It would be really great to reach 100!

We've hit the mid 30's....almost!

Another 4 beautiful dresses arrived today taking the grand total to 33 dresses! Thats fantastic and there are still lots more to come.

Katie sent me 3 beautiful dresses (with some assistance from her mum who made one of them!). Katie has a lovely website called Kotori Kits which sells sewing kits which enable you to make things like dressing up costumes and bunting amongst other things. You can also find them on facebook here

The first dress was a gorgeous blue floral fabric with pink ties. Its so pretty.

I love the beads on the ties. I am definately going to do this on my next dress.

I love the fabric on this second dress too. Does anyone know what it is? I quite fancy a skirt made out of this myself. Lovely!

and Katies mum very kindly made a dress for a slightly older girl which is a great idea and something I hadn't really given much thought too. Its a great idea to make different sizes to make sure that every little girl gets a dress which fits. Its made from a pretty floral fabric and uses lace for the ties which is another really pretty idea.

The other package I received today was from Mary who has a lovely blog called Mary Poppins. Its one of my favourite blogs with so many pretty things to look at!

This pretty dress is made from a vintage pillowcase with red ties and and red appliqued heart.

Such pretty fabric

Mary also sells lots of pretty handmade things in her folksy shop here. Thanks guys. I really appreciate you making and sending your dresses.

I also wanted to share another photo of one of the dresses on my last post. I took a photo of the wrong side and missed this gorgeous detail. Its the little details like this that I find so inspiring so couldn't not share.

As we get more and more dresses in I'm wondering whether I should try and get a company to sponsor the postage. I was thinking of contacting some well known sewing machine manufacturers or even someone like John Lewis or Cath Kidston who might like the idea of what we are doing and pay for the postage and give it a bit of publicity. What do you think? Any thoughts or ideas welcome.