A Thrifty Thanksgiving Dress

Oh my goodness . . . Thanksgiving is on Thursday! This was the thought that hit me hard this Sunday morning as I realized my baby girl has no outfit for the holiday. I had thrifted like crazy but found no dresses for the occasion. Everything I found was either too formal or too summery. So on our cold and snow covered Sunday I trekked over to my bin of thrifted goods awaiting refashions. And pulled out this shirt/dress (way too short for anyone to really wear as a dress) that I had bought for 69 cents purely because I loved the embroidered hem! 

I began by cutting the cups from the top of the dress and then I unpicked all of the elastic thread that was creating the ruching in the empire waist. I then measured up from the hem and cut across where I wanted the length of the skirt to be. 

Unfortunately, the remaining two pieces from the waist area would not be big enough to fit the front bodice without piecing it but a seam down the middle wouldn't be too terrible to do. Plus, I had some beautiful crochet lace left on the cups of the shirt. It just needed a really good press. 

I turned to one of my favorite patterns for completing the bodice and a sash, The Cottage Mama's Party Dress pattern. Sign up for her blog and receive the pattern for free. Believe me, it will quickly become one of your favorites! I cannot get enough of her fabulous patterns. 

After a while, I had the perfect dress for my little girl to wear at our Thanksgiving dinner!

The sash was added using a tiny bit of some embroidered fabric I had found at Goodwill a while back for $2.99. What are the odds that the colors would match so perfectly?

It felt so good to tackle this project that I decided to attempt one more dress that same day. Because once again, despite a lot of thrifting, I had not found the right dress for the kids' photo with Santa Claus. There's no time like the present to get to work. I dug a little deeper in my thrifty finds bin and pulled out this dress that I also got for 69 cents. 

It was an outdated juniors dress but I had loved the fabric and the flower. I actually bought this back when I was still pregnant with my little girl in hopes of creating something beautiful for her. Once again I cut up from the hem at the length I wanted her skirt to be. I had the same issue on this one, the remaining fabric just wouldn't be the right height for the bodice. Unfortunately, due to the stretch on this one I could not turn the pattern to make it work so I had to get a little more creative. I took the same bodice pattern piece as above and drafted a variation of it so that I could incorporate some red velvet that I had also gotten from the thrift store for $1.00. I used less just a small corner of my fabric.

And I created a two toned bodice. I must say, I am kind of in love with the look and will probably incorporate it into her Christmas dress next month. 

I assembled the rest of the dress using as many bits of the original dress as possible.

It is going to be adorable with some white tights and black dress shoes!

Until next time . . . have a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday!

Back to Scrappy: Quilted Burp Cloths

Now that Halloween is behind us it was time for me to get back to quilting. And what better way than with a small scale quilting project? If you remember my Great Adventure Quilt, then you will recall it was made for a very dear friend who was expecting her first baby. Well, her beautiful baby is now here so I had to make some goodies that I could send to compliment her quilt. I created some burp cloths using the scraps from the quilt!

I figured I would share my process in case anyone else wanted to use their scraps in a similar fashion. I began, of course, with a few scraps. I decided to stick with 3 strips to keep all uniform but I varied the width of my strips between each burp cloth. I cut my strips to be just as wide as the burp cloths. 

I pieced all three together and pressed. 

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Then I laid a store bought burp cloth (or diaper cloth as I believe they are labelled) out upside down on my ironing board. 

I stitched my quilted fabric with the right side facing the back of the burp cloth and the bottom edge along the bottom edge of the burp cloth.

 I then pressed the top edge of the quilted piece down by a 1/2 inch. 

Then I pressed the quilt piece down onto the burp cloth with the wrong side of the quilted piece against the right side of the burp cloth. 

At this point I folded the edges of the quilted piece under and pressed so that they were even with the edges of the burp cloth.

Then I topstitched around all the edges. 

To keep with the quilted look, I stitched in the ditch of my quilted panel. Though this would be equally cute with some free motion quilting. 

Finally, I wanted my burp cloth to appear completely uniform so I flipped it over and followed the stitching lines that run vertically across the back over my quilted areas. 

Which left me with this finished burp cloth!

Of course, I could not stop at one. I had to make a full set. But this was a wonderful way to create a coordinating gift set for the baby! 

Off to start Christmas presents! Until next time . . . happy sewing!