Over on The Monthly Stitch they are celebrating their second anniversary with a challenge called ‘Two is the magic number’ As part of celebrating is often the giving of presents, I thought these two little girls dresses are rather apt…

‘Dress a Girl Around the World’ is a charity that aims to give poverty-stricken children around the world a new dress, volunteers  sew simple dresses (and shorts for the boys) as they believe that every girl deserves the dignity of owning one new dress. They are distributed to countries such as Nepal, Borneo, Bangladesh, Costa Rica…

When Helen was little I loved making her little dresses, now she’s a trendy 17 year old it’s not quite so straight forward! I do miss making the dresses, so when I heard about the charity I was interested and keen to help. Many people make pillowcase dresses which I must admit is a concept I don’t really understand, however over on Night Owl Menagerie  they have designed a simple dress for use only for charity makes, it’s called ‘The Good Deed Dress’. It’s a great pattern as there’s no buttons to fall off or zips to break, it takes minimal fabric and it’s very quick to make.

I made one earlier in the year from a pretty pink flowery stripe fabric I’ve had for donkeys years. The neck and armholes are finished with bias binding, so I used a bright pink one. I found  short length of co-ordinating pink, so I added a pink frill and pocket. I added also a tuck just above the frill so it can be taken down if necessary. Pockets are very popular for putting little treasures in.. The whole dress didn’t take much more than an hour, I’d like to think I could make one a month, but realistically I’m happy with two a year!

A couple of weeks ago I made a Gabriola skirt from a soft cotton batik, I had quite a lot of fabric left, certainly enough to make one if not two dresses. This afternoon I cut one out and stitched it, I added some pale pink daisies to the pocket and also stitched the hem with a scalloped stitch.

Hopefully some little girl around the world will like it, I’ve just got to get them posted off now…