In recent months we’ve given a few updates on progress being made by Project HOPE Art and their handmade dress drive. As of our most recent update last October, the group had received 143 Popover Sundresses to deliver to orphanages in Haiti. This was almost five times the original goal of 30!
Well, your generosity didn’t stop there and then. Kathy Barbro tells us today that Project HOPE Art has now received almost 400 dresses, with more continuing to arrive!
Project HOPE Art has delivered the first 300 dresses to Haiti, along with many other items of clothing and footwear, and Kathy has posted a wonderful album of photos from the trip on Facebook.
Kathy writes:
Before returning home [from our first trip to Haiti] we asked some of the girls at Nadine’s orphanage what they’d like us to bring on our next trip. It’s important to note that it’s part of our mission to hand deliver any aid we collect as it is the only sure way to get it to the children. On every trip, we each carry the 70 lbs. allowed by the airlines. Clothing topped every wish list which was hardly a surprise as most of the girls were wearing tattered dresses and worn flip-flops. They needed dresses and Mimi came up with a plan.
Knowing I’m an experienced sewer, she asked me to take the lead and find a simple downloadable dress pattern and to do a blog post to see if I could raise some volunteers. Our goal was to get 30 dresses made for the girls at Nadine‘s. I located a free pattern for a simple but very pretty sundress, compliments of Oliver+S at oliverands.com. On September 1st I posted “Homemade Dress Drive For Haiti.”
The response overwhelmed us. Moms and daughters, and girl scout troops and classrooms, from as far away as Australia, answered the call and spread the word to others. In January, four members made the trip and delivered 300 homemade sundresses and a bounty that included new undergarments, flip-flops, sunglasses, hats and even 20 tutus.
We’ve already received nearly 100 more sundresses and additional accessories for an April return. And I’m just thrilled to be going back in July.
The Homemade Dress Drive for Haiti is an ongoing campaign of Project HOPE Art. For more information, please visit us at projecthopeart.org.
If you would like to sew and donate a Popover Sundress, you may download the free pattern with this link. Thanks to all of you who have done so already!
Back in August, we were contacted by Kathy Barbro of an organization called Project HOPE Art. The group is devoted to providing ongoing assistance for victims of last year’s horrific earthquake in Haiti.
The group was kicking off a new project, a homemade dress drive for young girls living at an orphanage in Port-Au-Prince. Their goal was to sew and deliver 30 dresses to the orphanage, and Kathy wondered if they could use our free Popover Sundress pattern for the project.
We are always happy to have people sew from our patterns for charitable causes. We told Kathy that, of course, they could use the pattern. She put up a blog post, and we Tweeted a link to it.
Fast forward two months. Did 30 people sew and send in a Popover Sundress? Yes. And then another 30 did, and another 30, and another 30, and…. To date, Project HOPE Art has received 143 completed Popover Sundresses to deliver to Haiti!
Now Project HOPE Art is raising funds for an interesting new project in Haiti. Once the project is funded and goes forward, the dresses will be delivered by the people with the organization who travel to Haiti to facilitate the project. If you would like to find out more about the project and make a donation to help fund it, you can do so on the project’s Kickstarter page.
Thanks to all of you who have donated your time and talents to make these dresses. And thanks to Kathy for putting in all the legwork to make this wonderful project happen.
Welcome to the Oliver + S stop on the Moda Country Fair Blog Hop.
I’m Liesl Gibson, designer of the Oliver + S line of fabrics for Moda and Oliver +S sewing patterns for children’s clothing.
My next collection of fabric for Moda, Cape Ann, will be out in October. Here’s a little video preview of the line filmed at last spring’s International Quilt Market.
And, now, thanks to the list of questions from our fearless blog hop leader Lissa Alexander at Moda, you get to learn more about me than you ever wanted to know.
What’s your favorite fair food?
I love cotton candy at the fair. It’s awful anyplace else, but it’s somehow perfect when you’re hot, sticky and tired after a day at the fairground, isn’t it?
What’s your guilty pleasure?
Oh, only one? I have two: ice cream and time spent alone at night when everyone else is asleep. That’s when I’m most creative and relaxed.
What’s on your bucket list?
I want to travel a lot more, and hopefully live in a few other countries as well. I’d like to spend more time in France and Japan especially, and take at least one trip to India. I’d also like to spend more time making things. I’d love to make at least one garment entirely by hand using couture methods, and I’m looking forward to having time to weave. But that’s all being saved for a different life stage, when I’m not concentrating on family and business quite so much.
What inspires your work?
So many things. New York (where we live) and its people are a huge inspiration to me. Also art, my daughter and her friends, and the books I read. I love to visit vintage stores and thrift shops and used book stores, too. I seem to find inspiration all over the place, really.
State fairs have become known for what they can fry? What would you fry?
It’s all been done, hasn’t it? I saw a story earlier this summer about one fair that had a vendor selling deep-fried sticks of butter. After that, what’s left? Fried tubs of Crisco? I give up.
What’s on your night stand?
My daughter painted a little wooden family a few years ago. I still love it and steal the little people for my night stand whenever she isn’t playing with them. That, and an alarm clock I never use. I’m not a morning person, much as I’d like to be.
Do you sing when no one else is listening? If so, what is the song or artist?
I usually pride myself on being quite high-brow and out of touch with pop culture, but lately I’ve been obsessed with Katy Perry and her video for California Gurls. I think it’s such a great, catchy song, and the video has a completely over-the-top aesthetic. And I love it that she collaborated with the artist Will Cotton (whose paintings I’ve admired for years) on the video and the album cover. She’s very tongue-in-cheek, and I adore her for it. But I must warn you that if you’re offended by borderline-graphic material you probably won’t care for the song or the video. . . .
Tell us about your pet…picture?
We have a fabulous cat named Parker. She’s 14 now, and she is a real sweetheart. She puts up with an awful lot of shenanigans around our apartment. We like to think she’s so good about that because she’s still thankful to us that we rescued her from a very different fate.
If you could be any age again for one week, what age and why?
I’d love to go back and be a kid again for a short time. Maybe age 5 or 6. It would be so amazing to see everyone as they were back then. I’d love to check back with old neighbors who have moved away, to visit our old house. You know, the whole nostalgia thing.
But if I did go back in time, there’s no way my sisters and I would wear our matching dresses to the Wisconsin State Fair. I think I must have been 9 in this photo. I’m the one in the red tights–with sandals?!?– on the left. (Sorry Mom. But the photo is too good not to share. Again.)
Are you related to anyone famous? Or infamous?
Not any big celebrities, but there is a mountain in Antarctica named after my dad in recognition of the 40 years of research he has done there. It’s called Mount Bockheim. And it even has its own Wikipedia entry. I still think that’s just amazing!
If you could go back in time and talk to yourself at the age of 12, what would it be and why?
Relax and don’t worry so much. I’m still telling myself this all the time!
If you could produce one free project to give away during the Country Fair Blog Hop, what would it be?
It would be the Popover Sundress and a matching doll dress, of course, because it’s the perfect dress for a little girl and her doll to wear to the country fair. (OK, that’s not one of Lissa’s questions, but I needed a transition.)
We don’t get many country fairs here in New York City. We often manage to come across a fair someplace during our summer travels, but this year it wasn’t meant to be. So we shot these photos near our studio in Brooklyn and hope that they have a bit of a county fair vibe. But come to think of it, I’ve never been to a country fair that featured graffiti-covered walls like these.
You can download a free PDF with the pattern pieces and instructions for making these matching dresses from our website.
If you were going to give away some fabric pre-cuts from your Cape Ann collection, what question would you make people answer for a chance to win?
Yeah, that’s not one of Lissa’s questions either.
But if you would like to be entered into a drawing for a jelly roll and a fat quarter bundle, leave a comment telling me what you would wear to your local Country Fair. We’ll pick our winners at random tomorrow morning. Once we do, we’ll notify the winners by email and will close down comments on this post. Good luck!
(Oh, by the way, whatever you do, do not check that little box below that says “Notify me of follow up comments via e-mail.” Trust me. You don’t want to get hundreds of emails today from strangers telling you what they would wear to the fair. Seriously.)
Who’s up for tomorrow?
That would be Joanna of Fig Tree. Be sure to pay her a visit!
Shortly after that, S asked me to make a Popover Sundress for her favorite doll, Samantha, to match a dress that she was wearing at the time. I scaled the pattern down to fit an 18 inch doll, made Samantha’s dress, and promptly forgot about the doll-sized pattern.
Last week I was going through some files and came across the pattern again. We thought there might be other little girls who would enjoy having a matching Popover Sundress for their favorite doll, so we’re making the pattern available as a free download.
Like the original sewing pattern, this is a simple and quick item to sew. It uses the same construction method as the full-sized dress, so you’ll also need to download the instructions for that version in order to sew the doll dress.
Finding this pattern reminded me that I’ve made a few other Oliver + S styles in 18 inch doll size for S over the years. If there’s enough interest, we’ll make some of those patterns available as free downloads in the future.
We initially developed the Popover Sundress for Issue 6 of Sew Hip, the British sewing magazine. Now you can download it for free!
Great for pursuing all sorts of naturalist adventures, or just spending a lazy summer day enjoying the sun, this loose-fitting A-line sundress has a contrast yoke with bias ties at the shoulder.
The Popover Sundress makes an excellent first project for a new seamstress–or a quick project that provides almost instant gratification for someone with a bit more experience.
Printing instructions: the pattern is provided as a PDF file sized specifically for 8.5 x 11 inch paper. Pages 1-3 should print in portrait mode while pages 4-11 should print in landscape. To provide accurate sizing of the pattern when printing the file, ensure that the option for Page Scaling in Acrobat Reader’s print dialogue box is set to “None.”
Updated, August 2010: we’ve now released a version of this pattern suitable for an 18 inch doll. You may download that pattern as well to make matching dresses for a little girl and her favorite doll.
Have you caught all the excitement about double gauze yet? I think it’s a great summer fabric. We used it for our Popover Sundress pattern in Sew Hip magazine a couple of months ago, and I just finished making these Bedtime Story pajamas for S using double gauze from Seven Islands, the U.S. distributor of many Japanese fabrics.
It’s a fascinating fabric, and it really is made of two layers of gauze. They’re woven together on the loom, which is what that white dot on the fabric is–the inside layer of gauze is white, and when the threads trade places on the loom, a little “stitch” of white shows on the purple side while a “stitch” of purple shows on the white side. You could use either side of the fabric as the right side, since the two sides are identical but opposite.
Double gauze can be quite drapey, so it’s better suited to some styles than others. I was pleasantly surprised to see it used very effectively in this adorable Birthday Party dress on the Oliver + S Flickr group. This particular version uses a Heather Ross print. Printing gives the double gauze a stiffer hand, which certainly helps to keep this dress looking crisp and summery.
If you haven’t tried this fabric yet, I strongly recommend it. It’s perfect for those really warm days of summer, which I hear are on their way.
