Pillowcase Dress

There is a store with a modest cotton fabric department near my house.  The store mainly sells 'dress' fabrics and does not cater to quilters.  Despite this I have found a few cute cotton prints that have inspired me to sew some items for my little girl.  (I would sew clothes for the boys too, but they wouldn't let me.)  My first attempt is a super easy pattern you can sketch yourself called a pillowcase dress.  While you can make this dress by upcycling your old pillowcases, none of my pillowcases are ready for retirement.  There aren't any thrift stores I can access in South Africa and besides this little elephant print was begging to be used.  The Prudent Baby blog has a terrific tutorial on how to make this dress if you are inspired to follow my example.  I used the general guidelines but measured my little girl for the specifics.  Tip:  give a little extra width in the chest area so it can grow with your child.  Here you can see my little girl with the dress nearly finished.  It is a little tight across the chest and tummy and she refused to wear it for more than a couple of minutes because it did not have any PINK in it.  Where do little girls get their pink obsession?                 OK, I lowered the sleeves and went scrounging for some pink fabric.  I used some of it for an applique of the elephant I enlarged from the fabric's pattern.  The elephant's eye is a little sequin and the ear is black Micron pen traced from the template. I created a ruffle on the bottom to add back some of the length I took out when I lowered the arm holes and and sewed a the tie for the top.  She is satisfied now and has agreed to wear it.  Whew.