OCC Dresses - Simplicity 8101 {Christmas Sewing}
Merry almost Christmas! I’m back with another one of my Christmas sewing projects! Today, I’m sharing dresses for Operation Christmas Child. Our family has been packing boxes for as long as I can remember and this year I decided to sew some dresses to go inside. If you don’t know about Operation Christmas Child watch the video below!
The pattern is Simplicity 8101 a Dottie Angel design and it includes different options for combining contrasting fabrics. Mom bought this fabric when we were little and it’s a set. One is a border print and the other is the dolls (from the border) as paper dolls. What a great match for this pattern!
I used the paper doll fabric for the toddler dresses with the bottom band being the upper portion of the border print. The two older girl dresses are the border print and the pockets are the opposite side of the border print so it has the chain of daisies running across. Of course, each dress has a slight variation and the one (pictured above, center) was the first one I made and it is the most different.
The fabric estimations on the back of the pattern envelope says these dresses used 10 7/8 yards of fabric but there wasn’t 10 yards left of this material. I think it was closer to 5-6 yards because I try to lay my pieces out differently to get the most out of the fabric.
This year we’re packing our boxes virtually. You can Build A Shoebox on Operation Christmas Child’s website, they pack it and ship the box to children in need for you! Which means, I don’t have a shoebox gift here at the house to put them in but I’m shipping the dresses to the Processing Center to be added to shoebox gifts that need one. (This is the first time I’m shipping items to go into the box without an actual box. I’ll let you know how it goes.)
