Emily is an amazing young woman with a goal: make 100 pillowcase dresses for young girls in Africa.
Emily, a Senior at North Kitsap High School, was moved and inspired by a story she saw about Little Dresses for Africa on the NBC Nightly News. After researching the organization and understanding the group’s mission, she knew she’d found the perfect match for her Senior year service project.
Pink Chalk Fabrics is joining forces with Emily to help her reach her goal. We are hosting a Little Dresses for Africa Sew-In on Saturday, January 29, from 10 am to 2 pm at the shop.
Here’s where you come in:
If you’re local and would like to join us please RSVP to customerservice {at} pinkchalkfabrics {dot } com. We will send you an e-mail with details about what to bring and how to get here. If there’s more interest than we can handle in our space we’ll plan more sessions to accommodate everyone.
Can’t make the Sew-In but still want to participate? Make a dress on your own, have a sewing party at home, or bring people together at a local community hall or church. When you have a completed project take a picture and email it to us so we can help Emily keep count and reach her goal. Drop dresses off at the shop or send them directly to:
Little Dresses for Africa
24614 Curtis Dr.
Brownstown, MI 48134
More information about Little Dresses for Africa:
Making a Difference: Little Dresses for Africa – Nightly News – Making a Difference – msnbc.com (This is a really great article where you can view the original NBC news segment and gives an update on the project after the report ran on TV – the numbers blew me a way!)
Little Dresses for Africa website and blog
Pattern for the Pillowcase Dress featured above
A sincere thank you to everyone out there who is organizing and participating in charity sewing!
What a wonderful project! I will try to get a couple made this week!
such a great project and a great cause!
How wonderful. I can’t wait to make one. Thanks for letting us know about such a wonderful charity. xo
I made some of these in November and you will not believe how fast they go together! Seriously, after you make one, it takes about 1/2 hour for every one after that!
How thoughtful of Emily to choose this as her service project! Best wishes for achieving the goal of 100 dresses?
Way to go Duff! Thanks for the feedback on making them. I’ll be sure to pass along your comment to Emily!
What a wonderful idea. It has been a long time since i have done dressmaking, but looks easy enough, so I will go check out the site.
Debbie
What a wonderful idea, I’m just a beginner, but I think I’m going to give it a try!
What a pretty dress and what a great cause.
Way to go Emily! I love it when young people are inspired to aim high and work hard!
Very heart-warming. Bless you, Emily, and happy sewing everyone!
What a great idea! Any young girl would enjoy a sweet dress like the one pictured.
It reminds me to be grateful and humble, what a wonderful young woman to make this her project. Blessings to you Emily.
Kathy, you are so thoughtful to help Emily with this wonderful project. Wish I could join you for the day. Dad saw the news clip on TV.
What a lovely idea!
Kathy, thanks so much for the beautful fabrics in my first ever order from you. I am amazed at the quality as well as the true representation of the colours I viewed on the website. We returned from cyclone hit Vanuatu last night to face flood damaged Toowoomba today, so receiving my order today was wonderful. Even more so, I love that you have a heart for the poor – wonder what could be done for Vanuatu?
Thank you Marilyn! I received an e-mail from the team at Fat Quarterly telling me about an auction to raise funds for the Australian flood victims. We’ll be posting about that as soon as I can get it together.
If there’s anything else you can think of please let me know! I’ll be thinking about it more too.
xo Kathy
I wish I could join you, but tending to a family member has my hands full these days. I’m wondering if there is a need for fabric for the dresses? Perhaps those of us who can’t contribute a dress could look through our stashes and share some fabric?
Hi Beth,
We’re actually going to do the version that uses an actual pillowcase. It saves an enormous amount of construction time because the inside seams are all finished plus it’s hemmed.
Stay tuned for more projects though, I’d like to continue on this path with more opportunities for participation.
Kathy
What a heartwarming project! I think I’d better check out whether there’s something similar in the UK. Good luck with your Sew-In
I look forward to the event. What fun!!
So sweet!
Lucky me, I’m nearby and can’t think of anything I’d rather do on a Saturday! Thanks for spreading the word and putting the Sew-in together.
what a great cause and opportunity to make something fun!
Awesome Idea – cute dresses. This is a great project!
wonderful idea and project. are there instructions for making this little dress? I’d love to join in.
This is one of my favorite charitable projects and it sure makes a super senior project to get high schoolers every where sewing as well as those of us a ‘little bit older’. We have a number of sewers in our quilt guild in Salem, OR, all making these.
We send our finished dresses directly along on church mission trips and they are extremely well received by not only various churches but the yo
For the young boys, we are just beginning to make shorts as an additional tag along project. Good for Pink Chalk and Kathy Mack for supporting such a wonderful cause!
Do you have a pattern or measurements you used for the boys shorts?
I have made some dresses, but would like to make some shorts as well.
Thanks
I missed this along the way Kathy and although I can’t make it to the NW this weekend (thank you I’ll stay in sunny SoCal!) I’ll be making this one of my projects for 2011. Thanks for sharing it with us all.
Every journey begins with a single step… thanks for sharing this! Going to talk with a few friends!
I saw this on NBC news as well and it was totally inspiring. So great to hear that this young girl can turn her inspiration into action.
What a great project! I’ll have to make a couple to dresses too.
Very inspiring! Good luck on the project!
oh best of luck and wish i were closer!
Wow what a great project.
What a good service project for our ladies at church. I will be passing along the information to our ladies church president to see if she agrees.
I have some little girl fabrics, need some? I saw the story and I think this is a fantastic way to share our love.
This is great! Wish I could join you Sat – but I will be out of town! I will definitely plan on making one though. Is there a deadline?
Hi Kathy,
Thanks for posting about the dresses. I wish I lived closer! I want to help and I can do it from Nebraska. Thanks for all the links.
I have a nephew who is a missionary in Chad and has 4 little blonde headed daughters. They are in the states currently and are very excited about taking some of these back with them for their friends. Thank you for the idea and the pattern! The girls and I will have fun making these!!
I can’t come on Saturday, but do want to participate. What is Emily’s deadline on getting the dresses to her? Thanks!
[...] http://pinkchalkstudio.com/blog/2011/01/15/little-dresses-for-africa/ [...]
[...] lately, but there was a post of a different sort of meeting. A pillowcase dress meeting. Kathy from Pink Chalk Studio let us know about a girl Emily who’s Senior service project is to make 100 pillowcase dresses [...]
I was so inspired by everyone making dresses for Africa that I went out and hunted down all the pretty cotton pillowslips I could buy at our charity shops. Ive made about 150 now and my pile is growing. Ive also made little boys shorts too. Well my idea was to use my luggage allowance to take these over to Africa. Ive been twice before and visited an aids orphanageNkosis Haven in Johannesburg and taken things Ive made or purchased. I never realised how my pillowslip dresses would inspire ladies here in Australia and Ive had so many offers of help. I was worried about excess luggage as I was told it was $50 a kilo for any extra luggage so I told my church craft group who are also helping. So now they have organised with the primary school to have a cake stall to help with the cost of excess luggage. I cant believe how wonderful people are. They all want to help. So Im off either at the end of July or early August to Johannesburg and will deliver the clothes to the orphanages. We live in the lucky country so must help those who desperately need our help. No matter how little we can do.
I’m very happy to be a part of such an outreach mininstry that reaches out to others in need. May God continue to bless this ministry and that many more volunteers will come aboard this great ministry. I’m putting my team together now to get the dresses made. Thank you NBC news for broadcasting this ministry nationwide. May God bless everyone who is taking a part of making the dresses and shorts for the little girls and boys in Africa and surrounding countries.
I wanted to make 65 dresses as I am turning 65 at the end of August. Well I have now made 100 and have 12 more on the table. I have now revised my goal to make 500. They take me 20 minutes to make and they are all so cute. I am taking this little show to one of our quilt shops and hope that this inspires more women to sew. It is a great cause and I have a lot of fun sewing them. Anyone who wants to have a sewing project that gives a lot of satisfaction both to the giver and the recipient, should try this one.
Amazing achievement, truly inspirational! X
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Just wanted to say how much I enjoy coming to this blog – so wonderful to be a part of these efforts to help children in need. i am currently knitting squares, hats & jumpers for AIDS orphans in Soweto as it is soon to be the coldest time of year there BUT as soon as I have completed them I will be making as many of these dresses as poss! Ihave found a meaningful use for 3 pink sheets that no longer match my colour scheme, its a lovely cheerful shade of pink too ;0). I see from their site that they also need’ britches for boys’ do you have any simple pattern that could be used? Many thanks, Tania x
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