All About the Poof

I think one of the most magical things a girl can have is a mom who sews.  How about custom doll clothes for your birthday?  Maybe a dress you saw in the store recreated to perfection?  Or even better: your sewing mom teaching you how to sew.

I was in elementary school when my mom first tried to teach me how to sew.  She believes everyone should have basic sewing knowledge, like sewing a button on a shirt, and she vowed that both I and my sister would have that basic knowledge.  I was actually kind of excited to learn how to sew, but once I started cutting, once I sat down at that machine, the magic faded.  It was like pulling teeth for my mom to get me to finish the 4-H project I had started.  For the kind of person I was, it was so very, very nerve-wracking.  For several years I gave it up, talking my mom into sewing something if I wanted it.

During college, and especially once I became a Mori girl/Lolita, my attitude towards sewing, and other such related things, changed.  It wasn't always easy to find things that I wanted in thrift stores, and some treasures I found needed altering.  So I took the plunge once again and recruited my mother to help me get back into sewing.  Since starting back my projects have been a dual effort.  There are times when I get so frustrated with something or when I dread sewing a certain thing and I just plain need help.

One of my most recent projects was set into motion by this set of pillowcases:

They're all beautiful vintage pillowcases we got from my brother-in-law's grandmother.  They kept staring at me and taunting me, telling me what a cute dress they would make.  I finally gave in and dug through my pattern stash for just the right dress and found it in this pattern here:

The length will be in between these two lengths.

Because I am my mother's daughter I decided a little bit of pattern altering was in order.  Basically, I kept the bodice and made my own skirt.  There were a myriad reasons why I didn't want to use the pattern, including the fact that it looked like whoever created it was trying to make it harder than it should be.  Another was that it didn't allow for the number of pillowcases I wanted to use.  I love the poof, and more pillowcases mean more poof.

Three yards of muslin

I used six pillowcases and three yards of muslin to line it (pillowcases are thin).  One pillowcase provided the sleeves, another provided the bodice, and the last four made up the skirt.  We had to do some finagling to get the bodice out of a single pillowcase, but it worked out.

Pinning the bodice.  That's the lining up in the left corner.

Every time I thought about setting in the sleeves I screamed internally.  I've only set sleeves in one time before and I only remembered that it was a nightmare.  My mom wasn't looking forward to it either because she knows how I get when I'm frustrated.  At the time I was appointed to do the sleeves she had to go outside and help my dad do something (I'm sure it was tree related.  We've been cutting down a lot of trees lately).  Instead of waiting for her to come back I pushed through and set the sleeves in, and she was quite surprised when she returned and I was finished.  It wasn't quite as vexing as I remember, but then some fabrics are more vexing than others.

So much skirt!

The skirt was far larger than I imagined it would be, because apparently four pillowcases have a lot more fabric than you'd think.  I used both sides of each case separately and sewed them together in a huge rectangle, which ended up being about 144 inches around, or about twice my height.  Hemming that much fabric was a sewing marathon.  The real challenge, though was gathering that much fabric.

Getting ready to gather!

Essentially, I was trying to fit 144 inches of fabric into about 40 inches of space.  I won't go into the details of gathering, just know it required me to sew around the skirt two more times and yank some thread until my fingers were blue.  When I was almost done I broke a thread, which is the nightmare of all nightmares.  Thankfully my mom swooped in and helped.  Then it was only a matter of pinning bodice and skirt together and making them one.  I'm quite pleased with the finished product.

I wore it to church today, belted, and I was even brave enough to wear my poofy petticoat.  Thanks to my mom who took the last pictures.  I'm happy to say that this is probably the project that I've come the closest to in doing by myself.  I did probably about 95% of the work.  What's next?  Well, there is quite a list of sewing projects...