Dress a girl around the world (and boy)

I recently stumbled across a great charity called "Dress a girl around the world"  through Louise Horder (@SewScrumptious), who is their UK ambassador. This charity encourages people to make dresses (and shorts) for underprivileged children around the world out of pillowcases, or leftover fabric. The patterns are easy to follow and the resulting clothes are really lovely.

As someone who has recently started working with an orphanage in Uganda (more on this later) I can really see the use in this charity. So many poor children in the world wear worn second hand clothes. having a nice piece of clothing that is theirs and was made just for them can make a big difference to their self-esteem. It may seem like a small thing when these children often don't have enough to eat. But  I think knowing that a stranger cares enough about them to hand-sew them something has the potential to improve their lives, if only minutely and for a short time. The photos of children receiving their clothes speaks volumes I think.

Malawi 2011

Uganda 2012

You can believe if I had a sewing machine I would be making up a batch of these straight away. However, as I don't I will instead be collecting a bundle of clothes from Louise in August and bring them back to Uganda with me instead. 

If you have some spare fabric and time please think about making some clothes for children around the world. You can read more on this, including where to get patterns and how to donate here on Louise's blog. There is also a useful magazine article pattern here.

Let's all dress some children!

Exciting new Indian clothes: but bad material

I know that I've kind of fallen out of the blogging world in the last few weeks. That's because I've moved to India! I've been busy moving from hotels to a flat and settling in. I have unpacked my craft materials and am in the process of making something for a friend so stay posted - I'll be blogging that soon.

For now I thought I'd share these amazing "dresses" (they're not dresses but I don't know what they're called - help anyone?) that I bought the other day. These are my first Indian clothes and I'm hoping they will allow me to blend in a little (ha ha ha - unlikely!). I love the patterns on these. I'm particularly smitten with the one on the right because of the garish clashing of bright pink and lime green. Awesomeness. 

The only downside to these is that the quality of the cotton is really bad. I'd been told this would be the case with Indian cottons but it's still a little surprising. The cotton is very thin and kind of rough. Definitely not cosy. I'm hoping with a few more washes it'll soften up.