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.