2023 Sewing Marathon : Dress #11 to Dress #18

 22-Oct-2023 : Sewn eight (8) dresses the past 5 days. 

Please click on the image above if you want to see the other handmade dresses I have made so far.

More to come... fabrics and dresses.

2023 Sewing Marathon : Dress #6 to Dress #10

 16-Oct-2023 : Three dresses I made over the weekend and two this morning for my 2023 Sewing Marathon. 

Please click on the image above if you want to see the other handmade dresses I have made so far.

More to come... fabrics and dresses.

2023 Sewing Marathon : Dress #5

10-Oct-2023 : This is the dress I made for today - Dress #5 which I will be adding to my 2023 Sewing Marathon album.

Please click on the image above if you want to see the other handmade dresses I have made so far.

More to come... fabrics and dresses.

2023 Sewing Marathon : Dress #4

 09-Oct-2023 : This is the dress I made for the day - Dress #4 which I will be adding to my 2023 Sewing Marathon album.

Please click on the image above if you want to see the other handmade dresses I have made so far.

And here are more fabrics from my collection that I will be making into dresses in the next few days for my sewing marathon. Might take more time to sew them as some of the fabrics are small so I may need to mix & match them up to make into a dress.

More to come... fabrics and dresses.

First Sewing Marathon after 5 years

 After not much sewing a sewing marathon seemed like a good idea after 5 years and being inactive for almost 3-1/2 years due to the global pandemic. I will be sewing at least one dress a day until the end of the year and have ready-made dresses ready for distribution everytime I find a suitable location to make a distribution and/or whenever I have the chance to travel and handcarry my handmade dresses with me. 

I started sewing 2 days ago and so far has made 3 dresses...

... and there will be more to come in the next few days! A good way to make use of my fabrics in the boxes. To check out all the dresses I have made so far, please click here or click on the section '(New!)-FY23 - Sewing Marathon by Dress A Girl Australia' which you will find on the left navigation pane of any of the blog's pages. Thank you.

A Reminder for those who want to donate dresses in the future

 I would like to remind anyone who wants to make dress donations  in the future, to please read the Guidelines on How to Make Dresses and Limitations on Dress Donations using the links below. These guidelines are necessary to avoid inconveniences.

• Guidelines on How to Make Dresses
• New Rules for Dress Donations

Tutorials on how to make dresses are also available using any of the links below :

• Peasant Dress
• T-Shirt Dress Tutorial
• Pillowcase Dress Tutorial
• Recommended Dress Size Measurements
• Armhole Pattern

The guidelines are very simple enough to follow but please feel free to send me an email for any questions and/or further clarifications you may need regarding the guidelines by clicking here or clicking on the 'Contact Me' tab at the top of this page or click on the 'Contact Dress A Girl Australia Red tab on the right side of this page. Thank you.

More dresses for Portugal

I have sewn more dresses for Portugal and this brings my tally to 11. My target is 20 dresses which will weigh about 2-2.5kgs and with about 12 days to go before my planned departure, 9 more dresses to sew is achievable.

Click on the image above or click here to check the 'Dresses for Portugal' album.

Sewing Dresses for Portugal

I have started to sew dresses again. So far I have sewn 3 dresses and will be bringing with me to Portugal in May.

I hope to sew a few more in the next few days. All dresses will be posted in an album 'Dresses for Portugal' which you can find if you click on the image above or if you click here. You can also find a link to the album on the left navigational pane under '(New!) FY23 - Dress A Girl Australia - Dresses for Portugal'.

Happy Easter to All!!

 Happy  Easter to All !!

Starting to Sew Again

 After almost 3 years (pandemic years) of non-sewing of dresses for Dress A Girl Australia,  I am now ready to sew again. For the next two weeks I have a goal of sewing at least 15 dresses for children between the ages of 2 to 13. These dresses I will be bringing with me when I leave for Spain and Portugal next month. In Spain I will be spending about 2 weeks to do a camino and then travel to Portugal for about a week. It is in Lisbon, Portugal where I will be donating these dresses to an orphanage I have contacted. Here are some of the fabrics I will be making into dresses.

I am so looking forward to this travel to do a camino and ending this adventure with a donation of dresses. I get to share my blessings again with children in need.

Update on Dress A Girl Australia

 Lately, I have been receiving lots of emails and messages asking if I am still the ambassador for Dress A Girl Around the World here in Australia. I was the original ambassador in 2011 till 2013. I am no longer the ambassador for this worldwide campaign since 2014 but I still continued the work on my own whenever time and finances allowed me to do it .  

Since 2011 to 2022, I have distributed over 10,156 dresses around the world, 1,175 T-shirts/Shorts Sets for the boys, 789 Boys Shorts only, 149 Quilts, 28 Leggings and 123 totes used as schoolbags, 57 boys and girls undies only (numbers exclude those that were given away with dresses and t-shirts/shorts set for boys) and 6 pairs of girls socks. Also distributed were packs and packs of undies for boys and girls. 

Through my Dress Sponsorship Program, I was able to raise money for Clean water Tanks for Vietnam(Christina Noble Foundation Program) in 2017, constructed and installed a well for clean water in Uganda in 2014 and Project Soibada in Timor Leste in 2016. I have also distributed school supplies for my 'Education without Borders' campaign and this is an ongoing project.

In 2020, I did 30 Christmas Shoeboxes which were distributed in any of these 4 countries : Fiji, Cambodia, Vietnam and Madagascar. I knew 5 boxes went to Madagascar.

During the pandemic years I joined Walk Challenges to raise money for a couple of charity organizations.

I have also made small donations of Christmas Fabrics and banners for Lismore, handmade cards for Meals on Wheels and Tie Hats for Breast Cancer patients in 2022. 

I have not been accepting donations since 2020 due to the pandemic but in my own little way I was able to make a distribution in the Philippines last October 2022. Since then I have been kept busy by my plan to do the Camino in Spain this coming May (in fact I will be departing for Barcelona on the 11th of May) and will be traveling to Portugal after I have completed the Camino with a small bag of dresses to donate to an orphanage in Lisbon.

You still can continue to download copies of the patterns I use to make dresses in my blog if anyone wants to (Tutorials on How to Make Dresses which you will find on the left side of this page.

I do not know who is now the ambassador for this campaign here in Australia because almost every year they keep on changing. All I know is I will keep on doing this work even if I have to make my own dresses. Hopefully I will be able to spare time and money when I come back from my camino and make a distribution before or for Christmas this year.

If you want to sponsor dresses to help raise money to pay for the cost of dress distributions, please click here. If you want handmade items such as dolls, totes, softbooks, quilts and wallhangings, craft books and other craft stuff, please click here. I try to update my website whenever I can and whenever I have new things to sell.

For any questions and/or enquiries about Dress A Girl Australia, you can send me a message via a click on the 'Contact Dress a Girl Australia' orange tab on the right side of this blog page. Or click on the 'Contact Me' tab at the top of this page. 

To all my previous donors and dress sponsors, thank you so much for your donations. They were all appreciated. Thank you.

In loving memory of my mom

22-Feb-2023 : A memorial ribbon I made in loving memory of my mommy who passed away last 27-Jan-2023.  She was one of the very first people, if not the first, who donated fabrics to the cause of Dress A Girl Australia when I first started in 2011. During the years I showed her pictures of the girls wearing their dresses and the couple of articles published in a Handmade magazine and she said to me 'why not create an album of all these photos and articles so you will have something to look back to'. We will miss you dearly.

via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/Co9UR1OLTMG/ 

#ribbon #memorialribbon #inlovingmemory#handmade #handcrafted #handmadewithlove #handmadecreations #gardeningtravellermadethis #softtreasures #gardenphotography #personalizedgifts #personalizedribbon

Happy New Year !

Wishing everyone a great and healthy 2023!

Merry Christmas to All!

 May the spirit of Christmas remain in your heart and home throughout the coming year.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Update on the parcel sent to the Orphanage in CDO Philippines

The parcel of handmade dresses, t-shirts, boys' shorts, undies and pairs of socks for boys and girls, handmade totes and backpacks has finally arrived and received by the head of the Calabrian orphanage last Friday, 28th of October (parcel sent 11th of October, 2022). No pictures were taken but the feedback I got was that the children were giggling and very happy to have received new clothing. My sincere thanks to Yolly Templa of the Calabrian Foundation for Girls for making this distribution possible.

2022 : Christmas Handmades and Fabrics to the "Make-It Christmas" project for Lismore

 Christmas is just around the corner and in the spirit of Christmas I donated the following christmas handmade items and several christmas fabrics to the Make-it Christmas project for Lismore.

1) Handmade christmas ornaments such as fabric christmas trees, christmas hearts, christmas houses, christmas stars, christmas cubes -

2) Christmas fabrics -

Maybe christmas will mean a little bit more with these non-bought-from-store Christmas Handmades for the people of Lismore.

Dress Distribution #123 - To an Orphanage in the Philippines

 Finally, today, a parcel has been sent to an orphanage(Calabrian Foundation Home for Girls, Cagayan de Oro City) in the Philippines. A few of the handmade dresses were donated in late 2019 which did not make it to the 2019 Christmas distribution and a donation made in the early 2020. The rest of the items are donations from Dress A Girl Australia which were not distributed due to the pandemic.

This is the parcel that was sent -

and these are the contents of the parcel -

• 29x handmade boys shorts
• 29 handmade boys t-shirts
• 3x handmade girls t-shirts  
• 10x handmade dresses
• 18 girls undies and 22 boys undies
• 17 sets of handmade t-shirts/boys short/undies
• 6 pairs of girls socks
• 3 children's puzzles
• 2 backpacks
• 3 handmade totes
• 1 lunchbox

It is not easy to make dress distributions these days due to financial constraints and difficulty finding people to make distributions on my behalf so this parcel sent today is a big win in my desire to make a difference. Thank you to all who helped facilitate this distribution. Your contribution is very much appreciated. 

For any future distributions, updates will be posted here in my blog and/or facebook page.  Thank you.

Walking to Restore Sights

 It is that time of the year once again. August month. I will be walking once again for the Fred Hollows Foundation to restore sights around the world.

I will be walking 150kms or more for the Foundation. So please help support my 150km challenge to restore sight. To make a donation, click on the image above or click on the image below or please click here.

Thank you for whatever donation you can give. Thank you for making a difference.