Re-Purposed Dresses

My daughter wearing a dress given to her by her Samoan host family

When my daughter was in high school, she took a school-sponsored trip to Samoa where she stayed with a host family.  During her stay, they sewed and gave her several cotton dresses.  Now that she has graduated from college, my daughter has started going through her old things, deciding what to keep and what to donate to Goodwill.  Among the things she was ready to pass on were several of her Samoan outfits.

I know that she will likely never again wear these dresses, but it seemed hard to just give away such lovely gifts.  I decided I’d take one or two dresses and re-make the fabric into table runners and placemats, so that she can still have a keepsake of her trip, but in a usable form.  Here are the table linens I pieced from a blue print dress:

Pieced table runner and place mats from Samoan fabric

I used the “Safari” quilt block design that I found in the quilt book, New Cuts for New Quilts: More Ways to Stack the Deck by Karla Alexander.

Making Quilts from Scraps

I’ve pieced a couple more small quilt tops from my stash of  fabric scraps.  The bits and pieces in my scrap box are already quite small, representing leftovers from other projects.  It’s fun to play with color and find pleasing combinations from among the many choices.  Both of these quilt tops are about one yard square.  Once they’re hand quilted, they can be used as small baby blankets in car seats or strollers, or as wall hangings, or as small table coverings.  I haven’t decided yet.

Selecting suitable color combinations from my fabric scraps

Piecing scraps into blocks

Square-in-a-Square scrap quilt top

Brown and pink scrap quilt using Amy Butler's pattern, Thea's Puzzle Quilt

Red, White and Blue: Variations

Red fabric

White fabric

Blue fabric

Red Mustang at Greenwood Car Show

Hood ornament, white Coupe de Ville

Fin, blue Coupe de Ville

Red poppy

White poppy

Blue poppy

My American Girl with Fourth-of-July cake, 1998