The 16 hand made dresses by Connie & me that were sent to Joplin, MO & Some Memory Bears Photos

These 12 pillowcase dresses were all made from Simplicity 2228 by me. They were made up to be sent to the Joplin MO area with some other dresses for the Joplin First Day (Back to school) Program around the end of July, 2011 for distribution to young ladies who recently suffered from a tragic storm disaster in their area.  

The request for girls dresses came in through ASG's Region 3's website, so 2 of our American Sewing Guild's Neighborhood Group, the Whiting Stitch Rippers, in Southern New Jersey put our sewing machines to work for another charity project.  All of the dresses that we made up are all size 7. They asked for desses in sizes 5 to 8. We choose the Pillowcase Dresses because we didn't have to worry about them being a perfect fit, because they are a loose fitting dress that will fit the girls who are extremely slender to the plus size.

For the ones below, I raided my fabric stash for most of the fabric, except for the last one, the Keliscope Dress. Picked up that fabric at JoAnn's earlier in the week, mainly for making up one of these dresses. The other fabrics came from various places and were purchased at various times. The Plaid Dress fabric came from Walmart's way back around 1994ish as indicated on the fabric's selvage.  The Green Frog fabric was an Internet/Ebay purchase about a year or so ago, with the border print on the bronz colored striped fabric a very, very recent eBay purchase.  That striped fabric was a Walmart's purchase quite awhile ago. That fabric is heavier than the other fabrics. It's more like a denim fabric.  The red and white fabric is more like a dressy satiny fabric, also a Walmart purchase from a few years ago. Added some white lace to that dress.

These dresses only required about a yard of fabric to make them up. Instead of using binding around the sleeves area, I used some of the dress fabric. Plus I made a change on the pattern. Increased the top part of the pattern about an inches to eliminate the use of binding for the ribbon caseing. Even used some of the dress fabric to make fabric straps for a couple of the dresses. Ran a horizontal row of satin stitching upwards on the dress center so the ribbons don't come out of the dresses when they are washed. Used both satin and grosgrain store-bought ribbons for the ties too. Added some wooden beads to the ends of the satin ribbons.  Used lace on one of the dresses for trim. Quite often when working with patterns, I make slight changes on the patterns. Been doing that for about 50 years or so.

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Individual photos of the 12 dresses below from Simplicity Pattern # 2228 that I made up. That's my shower curtain used as a backdrop for the dresses...LOL

Polka Dotted Dress

Bronz & Yellow colored Striped Dress w/Border

Plaid Dress w/Border

Cranberry Floral Print

Red & White Dress w/ Lace

Sunflower Dress w/Black Background & Sunflower Border

Blue, Black & White Square Print Dress

Black Scottie Puppy Dress w/Border

Sunflower Dress w/ Cranberry Background

Lavendar Animal Print Striped Dress

Green Tree Frog w/Red Eyes Dress

For the Frog Princess?

Keliscope Print Dress

Simplicity Pattern # 2228

I made up some labels using my Print Perfect Deluxe program, The Electric Quilt Company's cotton satin injet fabric sheets, my printer and sheets of the Steam-A-Seam2 for an iorn-on self-sticking backing for the labels.  Below is a photo of the label in one of the dresses made up by another ASG member that I had added the label to her homemade Pillowcase Dresses for this project. She used a different pattern than I used that was similar to mine. She bought her fabric in JoAnns's when we were there last Wednesday, the 20th, when I had also picked up some for one of the ones I made up too. We make a trip to JoAnn's as a days outing for our ASG's sewing group, including a late lunch every once in a while.

Labels: Using Avery's business card size template, with 10 labels on an EQC's fabric sheet and Steam-A-Seam2 for the backing.

The above photo shows all 16 of the dresses that 2 of us Whiting Stitch Rippers made up that were sent to the Joplin, MO area. 4 (all blue, 1st rown running downwards) were made up using Simplicity pattern number 0460 by Connie. We actually did up all of the dresses in about 2 days.  Had mine all cut out before spending the 2 days on the sewing machine with them. The label I designed and made up for the dresses is shown on one of Connie's dresses in a close-up photo. I added the label to all 16 of the dresses before sending them out via Priority Mail.  I also took photos of Connie's 4 dresses using my shower curtain as a backdrop, too.  One of hers is different, with a red border on the bottom of it, with teh other 3 having a navy border.

Heard that there was over 1400 hand made outfits sent to Joplin, MO for the First Day Project from many, many seamstresses in the United States. Shown above are just 16 of them.

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The week before, I made up some teddy bears for Care Alternatives...

6 Memory Bears

Like my sewing machine is constantly on the go.

Even when we were having a heat wave last week.

I kept on sewing on and on. 

It was too hot to go outside.

And my air conditioner was on the go

As I sewed, ripped and stitched along...

Other Bears made up on another occassion:

 2 Memory Bears: Added a mint green dress to the white bear from the 2 fabrics recieved for same.

8 Memory Bears: Two of these Memory Bears have T-Shirts. A special request. Made them from larger T-Shirts along with making up the bears themselves from denimum shirts.  Have done up other Memory Bears that I didn't take pictures of.

ASG Creativity Contest 2011 is Underway

The Simplicity pattern selections have been decided for the 2011 ASG Creativity Contest for 2011. Below is a photo of this years selection. Remember that you don't have to be an ASG member in two of the categories if you are 22 years old or younger. There's a third category that's strictly for ASG members. Like most other contest, there's a nice selection of prizes for the winners, too.

The 2011 Simplicity pattern numbers are: 2284, 2286, 2287, 2288, 2293, 2453 & 2469. Thinking of entering the contest. Picked out a couple of the patterns and already ordered them over the internet.

Our local Walmart store did away with the draws and draws of patterns when they reduced the fabric and craft departments. Miss browsing through the pattern books there. Spend a lot less time there since then.

Anyway, the 2011 sewing contest is on. Go to American Sewing Guild . Look over on the side for a list of available departments and click on the one for the contests. You'll find this one listed there along with some other ones. After getting the info and the contest entry form, you can head over to Simplicity and place your order for your own choice/choices of these patterns (and view more of their patterns online)  to get you started and on your way to creating your own look and entry into the contest if you don't have a local place for purchasing the Simplicity patterns.

I have a little bit more info on our ASG South Jersey chapters Neighborhood Groups website, the Whiting Stitch Rippers about this sewing contest if you want to check that out before going to the ASG website for the official rules and regulations and an application for same...

2 Bears

Click on the photos to enlarge them. Then click on your return button to reduce them and to come back here.

Recently made up 2 Teddy Bears using McCall's Carol's Zoo Pattern number 5605. With this pattern you can make teddy bears 8 inches, 10 1/2 inches and 14 inches. The middle one, the 10 1/2 inch size is the one our ASG South Jersey Neighborhood Group, the Whiting Stitch Rippers, will be working with for making them up for the Care Alternatives hospice patients families.  The pattern is very simple and easy to work with because it only has two pattern parts to it for making up the bears.

McCall's Carol's Zoo Pattern # 5605 used for making the bears.

Only 2 pattern pieces to work with.

The way that that works, one of their representatives brings us their hospice patients garment or clothing to make the bear out of. These bears will be faceless, with NO eyes, NO nose or NO mouth or the like. After the bear is completed, they come and pick it up and give it to their hospice patients family. That simple.

I had the honor of making up the first one for our group for them. But, before making up the first one for them, I made up one with some of my own fabric from my own stash. I used a fabric that had a black background with flowers on it in two shades of pink and yellow which also had green stems and leaves on it. The flowers looked more like drawings that resembled "eggs" you might say. I gave my sample bear some eyes using an extremely large black snaps and made it a white nose out of some white knit fabric scraps.

My sample bear. 

When working with the fabric that they gave me to make up a bear from I ran into a problem. The fabric was thin and a stretch knit fabric, similar to a jersey fabric you might say. I changed my sewing needle to a ball point needle in my Brother SE350 sewing machine and still had the same problem. The fabric was getting stuck in the hole in the needle plate. Solved it by using coffee filters, the same ones I use when doing embroidery work. I doubled the coffee filters. After done sewing, I simply and gently tore them away from the back of the fabric.

 Coffee Filters used for my embroidery work

Using the coffee filers when making the bear.

Since this bear was made out of really a plain white garment, I dressed it up somewhat. Was actually given two garments to work with. The second one was an extremely light mint green. I used that one to make a heart shaped applique out of that I had sewn on the front of the white bear.

I used the front neckline part that had some lace and embroidery work on it that I incorporated into the heart shape. It still looked plain so I made a skirt and a vest from the mint green fabric, too, that are removable.

I made up my own heart shape for the applique by folding a piece of typing/computer paper in half and cutting out the heart shape which became my pattern for same.

I didn't use a pattern for the skirt or vest. All I used were strips of fabric. I sewed a 6 inch wide by about 20 inches long strip together at their shorter ends. Then formed the casting for the elastic which I inserted using a small safety pin. I just ran two rows of zig zagging across the bottom which gave the fabric a finished fuffly edging.

Dressed up white bear.

For the vest, I used another strip of fabric, a little bit shorter in length. i cut a straight line for the armholes. Tried it on the teddy bear. Then, I cut the back part in half and V'd it with the shorter part of the fabric for the top neckline area. I French seamed it back together. Then, I simply made a small hemline going around all 4 sides of it. I added a small straight frog to it for a closure. Hand sewed that onto the vest. Then, the dressed up teddy bear was finished. The rep. just loved it when she picked it up from me. Usually the teddy bears are plain without clothing on them, but, this one might keep its outfit because of it being just so simply plain. Besides putting the Care Alternatives name tag on the back of the bear, I also put one on the back of the vest.

Care Alternatives label on the back of the vest.

 The sample the rep showed us at our ASG NG meeting last month was very colorful, like my sample bear is. The fabric that the white bear is made out of is sorta stretchy, which made it a wee bit bigger than my sample bear after it was stuffed. You can see that, when the two bears are side by side.

The two stuffed bears, side by side...

A word from our ASG Princeton NJ (SJ) chapter

We are going green.

This is the first time that I am sending everyone the newsletter through email, which will come to you faster, in color and it will save trees and the environment.

You will be getting a hard copy for now but my goal is that by the New Year we will be all green.

It takes a lot of time to pick up the newsletter from Staples, fold, label, sort by zip code and then take it to the Cinnaminson Post Office. It takes an extra ordinary amount of time which we all know is volunteer work. Please share the word with the other members of our groups that this is taking place.

Green by 2011 is my new motto.

Rose Wilkins

President of SJ / Princeton Chapter

American Sewing Guild

American Sewing Guild

Seeing that there doesn't seem to be an American Sewing Guild Neighborhood Group in Manchester Township, NJ, am interested in starting one up here in Ocean County.

The only problem is, finding other members of the Southern NJ chapter (Princeton) of ASG in Manchester Township which covers Manchester, Whiting and Pine Lake Park, with the zip codes of 08759 and 08757. Also notices that there's none listed for neighboring Toms River, zip 08753 & 08755, either, here in Ocean County, NJ.

American Sewing Guild

If by any chance you are a member of ASG in this area, or know of other ASG members here, please contact me or have them contact me so we can start up a Neighborhood Group. Click here to send me an e-mail