Have you sewed our free Popover Sundress pattern? How about 72 of them? That’s what the ladies of the Colonial Cablers, a Newport News, Virginia, chapter of the Smocking Arts Guild of America did recently. Here’s Jamie K. to tell you all about it.
The members of the Colonial Cablers Chapter of the Smocking Arts Guild of America (SAGA) completed 72 dresses to be included in Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes for 2019. We used the Oliver + S free Popover Sundress pattern to make the dresses.
Pictured l-r: Leigh G., Betsy C., Susie G. and Barbara K.
Not pictured: Jamie K., Lorene C., Rita C and Christine G.
I assembled the patterns for each member to be able to take home and use, and also led a demonstration of the construction of the dress before we started. There is also a sew-along on this blog.
After finishing the dresses, we paired them with t-shirts and tied them up with a ribbon. Each bundle was labeled with the size of the dress. We mainly did size 4 and size 6 dresses, but a few size 8 dresses and one size 2 dress were also completed. We encouraged members to sew up their stash while completing the dresses. We had lots of dresses that were given special treatment such as lace, rickrack, and piping. We also had one member make rickrack flowers to embellish the dresses.
We gave the bundles to one of our members, Leigh G., who is the project leader at her church for Operation Christmas Child. Her very small church was able to pack 1,089 boxes to be sent to 100 countries around the world. We were proud to be able to sew dresses to be included in some of their boxes! Next year we plan on making shorts for the boys using the Sunny Day Shorts pattern!