The Pillowcase Dress Saga, Part 1

Lately I've been feeling slightly guilty that my husband bought me a sewing machine sometime last year and I've used it a grand total of 4 or 5 times. When I first got it, I had high hopes of making adorable things for Riley and her future siblings (Caroline wasn't around at the time). Right after that, owl hat orders went through the roof became more steady and I had to push my dream of learning to sew aside for a while. The crochet business was pretty good up until I put my shop on vacation a few weeks before Caroline made her appearance so I never got back around to it.

Now that we're passed the newborn stage and we're on a relatively set schedule, sewing is back on the horizon. I'm not sure what got pillowcase dresses in my head, but I decided that I wanted to give them a try. I found two adorable, light weight fabrics at Walmart that are perfect for the dresses I have in mind. Before I could get started, though, I had to search the web for the latest and greatest tutorials: Here are the best of what I found. 

photo from The Mother Huddle

First I found this adorable Fat Quarter Pillowcase Dress tutorial at The Mother Huddle. Since this was my first attempt, I figured I should go with something a little more simple to start out with. After putting it on my "to try later" list, I went in search of something more in line with my skill set. 

photo from Freshly Picked

The next one that caught my eye was this one from Freshly Picked. I actually really like how there's no ribbon at the top. I think it makes the dress look less homemade (not that there's any problem with something looking neatly handmade). Being the impatient girl that I am, I didn't want to have to create bias tape from my fabric (not sure how good it would look with my large prints anyways)... I wanted something I could finish in a couple of hours so the search continued. 

photo from Sew Like My Mom

The tutorial that I ultimately went with immediately caught my attention; the title Easiest Pillowcase Dress Ever let me know it was right up my ally. This dress doesn't have any "armholes" so I was a little bit worried about how it would look on. The simplicity outweighed my worries, though, so I decided to go for it.

I didn't want to ruin my good fabrics, so I did a trial run using a piece of fabric I picked up from Walmart's remnant bin. In the store, I wasn't sold on the print - I just chose the best of the cheap options (the neon pink and black houndstooth just wasn't cutting it for me). Once I finished, though, I decided that it looks adorable. What do you think? It might be hard to tell from the photo, but the polka dots are yellow. The lack of armholes isn't even noticeable when it's on. I think I'll try some on my future endeavors, though, just so I can experience sewing around the curves and working with bias tape.

Stay tuned, though. I have big pillowcase dress plans in the near future.