Back on the machine...sewing machine

Well, after countless hours searching Pinterest I finally decided to make Olivia a pillowcase dress. I had gotten several vintage look pillowcases from a friend and decided to get busy. I am very pleased with the result, but Olivia's only comment was..."Can you make it longer?" It's a pillowcase. "No, I cannot make it longer." : )

In case you are interested in how I made the dress or the bottoms, keep reading.

The pillowcase dress inspiration and directions are found here: http://www.themotherhuddle.com/tutorial-front-or-back-tie-pillowcase-dress/

The bottoms I made from the bottoms of a pair of leggings. She had several leggings that I wanted to cut off to make shorts for wearing under her dresses. For whatever reason, I decided to keep the cut off portion from a yellow pair and they match the pillowcase quite nicely.



Here are the bottoms of the leggings. As you can see, they have a nice decorative lettuce stitch finish on them. I simply cut down the seam on both legs to match the distance from my daughter's waist to the crotch plus 1 1/2 inches for the casing for the waistband. Luckily, this left plenty of length for the shorts legs.












The next step is to turn one leg inside out.

Now, take the leg that is right side out and put it inside the leg that is wrong side out. Line up the seams and upper and lower edges carefully. The right side of both legs are now in contact with one another.
















Carefully pin the cut edges all the way around.


















Sew the pinned edge closely to the edge. Disclaimer* If you are a stickler for sewing by the rules, you are going to want to stop right here. You will cringe and become violently ill when you see the seemingly careless nature to my sewing. I would love to say it's because I don't have many sewing skills, but that isn't the case. I am using an old machine that barely works and I am too lazy to change thread. You've been warned. : )



















For all of you sewing novices, this is proof that it your sewing doesn't have to be perfect to function. Go forth and sew!

Now, the next step is to untuck the legs and turn the whole garment wrong side out. Fold over the top to fit your elastic. I measured my daughter's waist and made the elastic that same measurement. Here again is where I get lazy. I don't want to have to thread the elastic through the casing. I can never find a safety pin when I need one. I lay the elastic in the folded area and pin just below it to know where to sew. Once I have most of the waistband sewn, I overlap my elastic about an inch and sew it in two area for security. Fold the remaining waistband and finish sewing.








Here are the completed shorts. Now, my daughter is thin. These may not work if your girls has some curves going on.

















As you can see, these won't win me any awards, but they were made with things I already have on hand.

Here she is in the pillowcase dress. Sadly, the shorts don't show, which may be a blessing in disguise. : )The main reason I chose the pattern was because this dress ties in the back and not on the sides.