The handmade pillowcase dress is back and I think it's not going away this time! Your grandmother may have called it a flour sack dress. You may also hear this type of dress referred to as a "Grow with Me" Dress becuase the dresses can be worn for such a long period of time. The most popular name is "pillowcase dress" because these dresses can me made from pillowcases.

Back in our parents and grandparents day, nothing was thrown away. If one pillowcase became damaged or wore out faster than the other, the other pillowcase was turned into a girls dress. Flour used to be sold in large sacks that you could take the ribbbon out of and soak off the label and you'd have about 1 yard of fabric or at least a clean sack that could easily be transformed into a shirt or a dress.

When I travel to different shows, you wouldn't believe the shock on the faces of the older customers. I've seen everything from stunned silence to, "I remeber those dresses! I wore them when I was little." I didn't ask the lady who told me this how old she was, but she had to be 70 if she was a day. I have heard that these dresses were around in the Great Depression.

The best thing about these dresses is that they can be worn for 2 to 4 years. The garment stars out as a dress and as the wearer gets taller the dress is worn like a shirt. Talk about getting bang for your buck. What dress are you going to buy out of the store for a child that they will be able to wear for 4 years? I don't think children's mass retail in America would survive for long if they started selling dresses like that at the mall. Imagine being able to go to the store and buy a dress that your 1 year old daughter or niece won't grow out of in 5 mintues (you can wake up now).

The second best thing is that the dresses tie closed at the shoulders. When the ribbon used to tie the dress wears out, just buy more ribbon. No buttons to replace. Of course, it's for that reason I wouldn't put a pillowcase dress on a sleeping child or on a young toddler unless they were under CLOSE supervision or just to take pictures and take then take the dress off. The ribbon acts as a drawstring an allows the width of the dress to be adjusted to fit the child. You can even adjust the length of the dress by leaving more slack in the ribbons when you tie them closed. Most of the time, the ties are made of gross grain ribbon, but they can be made of satin ribbon or even made of matching fabric.

I have included some pictures of pillowcase dresses below. The white dresses with decoration at the bottom were made from vintage pillowcases! I just love the hand embroidery! I should have pictues soon that will show girls wearing the dresses.

If you have little girls, you may have seen these dresses with matching hairbows and other matching items (pants, shoes, bloomers,etc). Now you know what to call them. They are pillowcase dresses. You can find them on the web and in local boutiques. Some prices are OK and some are out of this world! If you are looking to buy a pillowcase dress just know that they come in sizes 6 months to age/size 10. You can purchase them affordably at Jennifersjumpers(dot)com.

Pillowcase dresses are also great for the environment because you are reuse a pillowcase before throwing it away, and that repurposed pillowcase will be worn for years as a dress before being thrown away (or given away or sold at a garage sale). How's that for living green from a young age!

You can also buy pillowcase dresses to fit dolls and baby dolls, so that a girl and her doll can wear matching dresses!

As a final note, it just seems to me that it's fitting for the pillowcase dress to make a comeback. As tight as times are now, maybe this dress can help parents get better value for their dollar and still dress their "little girly girl" like a --girly girl!

Check out my other hubs for 20 ways to save money on children's clothing and to see pictures from December 11,2008, when it snowed in south Louisiana.