Dress A Girl Around the World evening

Last week I ran a sewing evening at my friend Rachels’ house.  We had 15 lovely ladies join us along with seven sewing machines, a pile of fabric, a Guiness cake and a dog and cat!

I’d spent some time in the afternoon cutting out dresses so they were ready for the ladies to sew when they arrived.  Most ladies had some sewing experience, so armed with instructions, elastic and bias binding they got on.

Some of the ladies made yo yo’s/suffolk puffs and pockets to add to the dresses

I’d posted on my facebook page about the evening asking if anyone local had fabric to spare then we would happily turn it into dresses for them.  The lovely Donna Flower replied immediately and the next day I received a parcel of vintage fabrics in the post, it was almost all turned into dresses on the evening, these are a couple of the dresses we made with Donna’s donation:

At this stage they don’t have pockets but I’m fairly sure they were added at a later point in the evening.

By the end of the evening 13 dresses were complete, there are not 13 pictured here but there were in the same fabrics as these.  We also had a donation of genuine African fabrics from a friend whose husband goes out to Malawi with his school to do some work each summer.  These fabrics were were quite stunning and culturally very appropriate.

It was a very fun but exhausting evening, I don’t think I stopped talking!  If you fancy getting involved then please do, Louise is the charity’s representative in the UK and co-ordinates getting dresses to where they need to go.  If you can help with getting dresses delivered overseas please contact her, I know she would be delighted if you could help.  If you’re not in the UK and want to get involved visit the Dress a Girl homepage.

Thanks very much to Rachel for hosting the evening and to all those how sewed, ironed and made tea!  I’d love to do it again.