Please join us in the Spoonflower Greenhouse, our classroom and community space here in Durham, NC, to sew Pillowcase Dresses for the Philippines. We’re inviting community members to come and sew with us on Saturday, February 8, from 1-4pm, to support the efforts of a friend who is currently working to open an orphanage in in Tacloban City, Leyte, one of the areas of the Philippines hardest hit by Typhoon Haiyan. We’ll be sewing “pillowcase” sundresses to stock this emerging orphanage with lovingly sewn handmade clothes for little girls.
With hands-on instruction from expert seamstress (and friend to those working on establishing this new facility) Carmen Baugh and pre-cut dress kits, we’ll provide everything you need to create a perfectly finished pillowcase dress for a little girl in the Philippines.
We’ll be using the “sausage roll” technique for creating the perfect edge to a pillowcase with no exposed seams, so you’ll even learn a new versatile sewing skill while constructing these precious dresses.
All ages and all skill levels are welcome to attend, so feel free to bring your kids and your friends! There is plenty of cutting, ironing and pinning to be done in addition to simple sewing, so you can help this effort in any way you like.
This is a floating event, so please come whenever you can, stay as long as you like, and bring along your sewing machine if you have one. We’ll provide all materials needed to make these dresses, but feel free to bring any fabric you have that would make a cute dress, too! These come together very quickly, so you might have time to whip up several while you’re here– we’d love to send as many dresses as possible!
We can’t wait to see you here to sew for a great cause!
Thanks so much–
Hi, Joan, that would be amazing! You can find all of the details for our sew-in event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/228391067284648/. We’ll be posting a tutorial to make the dresses soon, with a link to pattern pieces. In the meantime, there is a wealth of information about making “pillowcase” style dresses through the Dress a Girl Around the World organization’s website. You can see their Sewing Handbook here: http://www.dressagirlaroundtheworld.com/sewing-handbook. We’re happy to collect dresses if you want to send any our way, and we’ll be sure they make it to this particular orphanage in Philippines. Thanks so much for sharing information about this event!
I would love to pass along this event info to my daughters soroity. can you send me the details? thank you
Hi, Alexa and Patricia! I’m so excited that you’d like to send dresses along, and we would be delighted to collect them here and pass them on to this particular orphanage in the Philippines. We will be posting a tutorial about using this particular method to make the dresses, but there are lots of resources available online to get you started sewing– with or without an actual pillowcase! The Dress a Girl Around the World organization has great information on their website, including pattern pieces and templates. You can check out their Sewing Handbook here: http://www.dressagirlaroundtheworld.com/sewing-handbook. More information to come, and feel free to send any dresses here! Thank you so much for supporting this effort!
Can we get the pattern for the remote events? We want to do this on Friday this week and/or next.
I have the same comment–couldn’t you do simultaneously on Google+ or some such? Sure would be fun!
Is this something that those of us NOT in NC could join and send you dresses to pass along?