Shout-Out to a Great Dress Tutorial

I ran across the tutorial a few months ago for making this little girls' pillowcase dress with fat quarters. I fell in love with it and started scheming about what kind of little dresses I might make.  I don't have the time to sew, really, but somehow I got hooked on this super fun project anyway.  I think I started daydreaming about birthday dresses for my faraway twin nieces and also for my little girl.

I went to Hobby Lobby and looked through their bundles of fat quarters in 5-packs.  Most of the bundles are $9.99 per bundle, but if you use your 40% off coupon, that's about $6 for a little girls' dress...which is a bargain if you enjoy making it.  And I did.  The tutorial did an excellent job explaining all the details.  Here's the first dress I made, following the directions.  A birthday dress. I made it far in advance of her birthday, because I knew I wouldn't have the time as her birthday approached!  (Obviously my photography and staging are not as cute as you'll see on the tutorial.  But this is a family  blog, not a craft blog, so I'm not going to worry too much!)

She was moving most of the time she was wearing it, so it was hard to get a picture, but she loved her dress, and I was happy.

Here's the second dress I made...and I made three of them, just alike.  I had wanted to make something for my youngest twin nieces for their birthday, and it just so happened that we'd be visiting with them and taking pictures with them, so I made one of these dresses for each of the little girls.  The sizing guide in the directions was perfect.

(Note for those who might sew one of these: The original fat quarter bundle had TWO directional fabrics, both navy with birds.  This dress only allows for ONE directional fabric, and it has to be on the bottom border.  An up-and-down print put on the body of the dress would end up sideways. So, I just bought a bit of extra, coordinating fabric to replace one of the bird prints.  The purplish fabric on the lefthand side of the dress is the one I added.)

Here are the dresses in action...

 And sitting still, for a picture.

I realize that I never did write a post about the nice visit we had with Jeff's mom, and his sister, brother-in-law, and their girls.  It was around the time we were preparing for our move, and I was going a little crazy.  I trust that I will recover from the craziness at some point, but so far, 2013 has been pretty consumed by our move.  And I will write about our visit.  Sorry, that was a tangent...I love how the dresses turned out, had so much fun making them, and really appreciate that there are people out there who take the time to share their creativity!