Little Girls Dresses

Well, I have to tell on myself to give you the whole story on this little dress idea. Since my friend Grace was here last week and we always love to craft - I had pulled out this idea from a previous issue of Country Living:
I looked all over for some fun vintage fabric (also cheap) to use for this but came up pretty empty. So, I continued to scour ebay and found one lot of cute fabrics in fun retro colors. The fabric arrived, I washed it in preparation for our fun project.

Well, we cut the strips of fabric in random widths as suggested. Sewed those strips together with french seams and were getting excited. When we finished sewing our strips together, it became obvious that this was going to be one HUGE tote bag! It would have been a perfect pillowcase! What to do? I certainly did not want to waste all of our effort or the fabric and it was turning out cute!

We tossed around several ideas and the bag idea just wasn't working. Then we remembered an idea she had previously sent me for a pillowcase dress for little girls! So, you guessed it - we decided to make the most unique little dress we'll probably ever make! Should I even make Emily wear this? Or will it scar her for life? :)

Here is the finished product:
And, from leftover scraps - a cute little matching purse:

We loved these so much that we decided to each make another one from 1/2 yard of fabric. The tutorial on the above link is perfect - gives all the details. We did do french seams so there are no raw edges - should wear well.

For Emily:
For Brianna:

The dresses we started with were not really frugal or thrifty...but the second ones made out of 1/2 yard were $2-3 each! They will be perfect for running around this summer and staying cool!