Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Dresses looking for a ride! :)

Are you traveling to a country with basic clothing needs for it's girls?  We are an organization of caring people who want to bless little girls with a new pretty pillowcase dress to raise her self esteem, maker her feel pretty and put a smile on her face...as well as meet basic clothing needs.

A girl in Zimbabwe waiting for her first pretty dress.
My name is Janine and I am the Connecticut State Representative for Dress a Girl Around the World.  We transform ordinary pillowcases into extraordinary, beautiful pillowcase dresses.  Each dress is handmade by a caring individual who selflessly constructs the dress, primarily out of donated materials, into something any girl would be proud to wear.  The dresses aim to meet basic needs but more than that, to make the girl who is blessed with it feel pretty.  The dresses are put on a girl right over any existing clothes she may have and a moment is spent on her level to fasten the ties over her shoulders.  She is told that the dress is a gift from someone who made it by hand simply out of love for her.  She is told that there is a God that loves her and that she is important.  For some girls, this is more individual attention than she may have had in a long time.  In many countries, girls have no value, no worth in the eyes of the people.  However, every person, every girls is special and important to God and we are trying to spread God's love by sharing these dresses with girls everywhere.

You can see she feels pretty and loved!
To date, Dress a Girl has blessed 126,000 girls in 64 countries with dresses of their own.  I am actively looking for people in and around Connecticut who are traveling where there is a need for these dresses.  I can offer you dresses and all that I ask is that you bless the girls as described above and take photos of the girls receiving the dresses so that we may share those pictures with everyone that sews for us.  The photos and stories are what drive all of us to continue to sew.  I can hardly put into words how awesome it is to see a dress I made on a girl who is smiling and feeling good about herself!  This goes for every person who sews for Dress a Girl. 

Dress a Girl Connecticut has made over 4500 dresses since I started in 2010 and we have many women getting involved each day.  It takes many volunteers, generous donations-both of materials and financial donations to keep us going.  Every penny we receive in will be put back into dress materials, label costs and shipping when necessary.

If you, your organization or your church are traveling soon, please contact me to arrange to get dresses to bless girls.  I currently have about 500 dresses looking for a ride to a needy girl.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

How to make your own pretty bias tape!

Unlimited fabric pattern options!!! Love them!


I have had several requests for tutorials on how to make your own pretty bias tape.  We all know how expensive it can be to purchase.  Making it is so inexpensive and you can get many yards of bias tape from just one yard of pretty cotton fabric!  Here are a couple links to sites with good tutorials!


SEW pretty!


This site has a printable card for feeding your strip of fabric into!

If you try any of these out, please post pictures for me!  I tried it a few times and it is simple but time consuming.  The up side is that it is super inexpensive and they are sooo much prettier than the plain colored ones we can buy in the stores!