Sewing 4 Haiti

Hello!

Sew, I wanted to tell you about that one time I was part of the Sewing 4 Haiti initiative.  One of my sew sisters sent out an S.O.S to all of her sewing friends that might want to participate in making dresses for little girls in Haiti.  Shun D. from www.shundavis.com hooked up with a non-profit agency called 4 Haiti NYC – 4HNYC Inc. from New York.   4HNYC is a registered NYC nonprofit consisting of a group of concerned young professionals in the NYC area who are raising money for the children of Haiti. Shun decided that she wanted to help and set a goal of making 100 dresses for little girls in Haiti and asked her friends to help, and help we did!  You can read more information here in Shun’s project kick off blog post. Shun received help from near and far from ladies who wanted to help her reach her goal.  These ladies showed out! The dresses made were all so adorable.  This was definitely the most fun project I’ve worked on so far.

There were two pattern suggestions posted in the group for possible dresses.  The first dress was Simplicity Pattern 8147.

The other suggested pattern was M6541 from McCalls.  This pattern was also so adorable and had different views you could make.

Well, I decided that I didn’t want to buy a pattern and went on a google search to see if I could find an easy little dress I could whip up.  I wanted to make a few so I didn’t want to spent too much time on figuring out a pattern.  I found the most adorable peasant dress pattern on www.sewmuchado.com.  Not only was it easy peasy, it was free!  I reached out to Abby from Sew Much Ado asking if I could use this pattern to make these dresses and she said Of Course!  The infant peasant dress free pattern can be found HERE and not only do you get the pattern, but there is an awesome tutorial to go along with it as well.  This dress was such an easy sew that I was able to make 5 of them to donate.

When you print the pattern you just have to put the bodice and bottom together and cut the sleeve.

This is what the pattern looks like cut out.  You just cut 2 on the fold for the front and back and cut 2 sleeves.

Here is a close up of this beautiful fabric I used for one of the dresses.  I love the gold detail outside of the black circles.  I purchased this fabric from Walmart and came in a fat quarter pack.

Here is a different dress made with the same fabric listed above.  I made this dress using Simplicity 1411.  I purchased this pattern about 3 years ago when I started sewing.  I didn’t know the first thing about reading a pattern.  Luckily, I can navigate around pattern instructions better now and I was able to complete this dress in no time at all.

I just love how the fabric gathers at the top.  I used 7/8″  black grosgrain ribbon for the arm ties.

Here is a picture of the peasant baby dresses I was able to send.  They were so easy to make, it took me just one afternoon to complete them all.

Shun was able to send more than 112 dresses as well as some items for boys..  I would call that a success!

Here are the beautiful girls wearing some of the dresses the ladies made from the group made.  The girls look so happy and I’m so happy I was able to help with such a beautiful initiative.

We received word that our next project will be for boys!  I can’t wait.  Check out the dress pattern from Sew Much Ado and let me know if you make it.