Pillowcase Dress

This pillowcase dress was made for a group who sews for charity. I'd love to tell you more about that group later... so for now, onto the dress!

I've heard how easy pillowcase dresses are, but was still a little skeptical. Well, not anymore! This was a super-quick, fun project. The pattern came from Nancy's Notions. There are no pictures with the pattern, though, so here's how it looks.

Step 1: Cut a piece of fabric to the appropriate length, based on the guidelines in the pattern. I was sewing a size Medium.

Step 2: Match selvages & sew. You don't even have to cut off the selvage! You now have a big tube.

Step 3: Center the seam on the back of the tube.

  And cut out the armholes, using the pattern.

 Step 4: Fold under casing, then edgestitch. My elastic was 3/8" instead of 1/4" like the pattern suggested, so I just made the casing a little bit wider.

Step 5: Thread elastic through casing, stitching at both ends. To make this easier, I didn't actually cut the elastic at first. Instead, I marked 7" from the start and pulled the elastic all the way through the casing. Once the elastic was all the way through, I stitched the "free" end to the dress, then gathered the top until I found where I had marked the 7". Then it was easy to stitch this down without worrying about the elastic disappearing into the casing.

 Step 6: Cut length of bias tape & stitch over raw edges on armholes. This also hides the elastic. I did not bother turning in the raw ends of the bias tape, and also cut the bias tape only 36". This way, 1 pack of bias tape could be used for 1.5 dresses.

Step 7: Hem the bottom, and you're done! Tada - one delightful pillowcase dress!

You can also add embellishments or pockets to the dress if you want, but I loved this one just how it was. I definitely want to make more of these. Seems like this would also be a really fun project to make with a little girl learning to sew.