Month 6: Upcycled Fun for the Dresden Neighborhood Sew Along

Good morning everyone! I’m really excited to share with you the theme for the sixth month of the #DresdenNeighborhoodSAL! It’s been a fun one for me to work on this month. I want to remind you all that the themes I post each month are just suggestions, ideas, or starting off point. If you don’t want to make a neighborhood with that specific theme –it’s ok! Just make whatever neighborhood you want!

Don’t have the pattern yet? Get it on Craftsy or Etsy! OR ask your local quilt shop to order it from me!

I tended to dress my three girls in really fun clothes when they were little – one brand in particular was Matilda Jane. I liked it for many reasons – one, if I were to make clothes for them this is the kind of clothes I would make and secondly, it was was made with really nice fabric that I knew I could use to make quilts for the girls in the future. I’ve been collecting it now for years and the girls have started to grow out of it so it was time to use some of it to make their quilts! The theme for this months Dresden Neighborhood Sew Along is Upcycled Fun! Now – if you don’t have a pile of adorable clothes your kids wore growing up to cut up and make into a neighborhood – there are plenty of other options! Perhaps head to your local thrift shop and get old dress shirts to make into your houses? Or if you have some of your favorite clothes that you want to use? Let’s take a look at some of the fun details in my Upcycled Fun Dresden Neighborhood. One of my favorite things about Matilda Jane clothing is all the fun details from ruffles, to lace, to fabulous buttons. I haven’t worked a lot with “non quilting” material but I got some great tips from Blair Stocker’s Book “Wise Craft Quilts” and I would highly recommend it if you want to really do more with unconventional fabrics. I did a little experimenting to get the ruffles added to the roofs. The first step was to cut the ribbon ruffle to the length of the roof. I only wanted half of the ruffle so I cut it lengthwise. I put the bit where I wanted it and stitched the edge down before adding the roof fabric. I fused the roof on and once it was there I used Aurifil thread to secure the house down. Because of the bulky-ness of the fabrics and details added into this particular neighborhood I stitched all the roofs down as I created them instead of just doing all the final stitching at the end. This kept everything secure and made things easier to keep track of. When cutting out the plates for the houses I had fun fussy cutting around the great details of Matilda Jane clothes. This particular dress had ribbon with great sayings all around the skirt. I, of course, had to add the “challenge yourself” saying to my neighborhood. I have plenty of fabric from the girls clothes so I plan to make three more of these special upcycled fun – one for each of the girls’ quilts. I can’t believe that we are already through the first six months of 2018! I’m loving how unique each months neighborhood is! Now it’s your turn! Let’s see what you come up with for your Dresden Neighborhood for the #DresdenNeighborhoodSAL! Feel free to share photos in my facebook group “Quilt and Dream Along with Kim Lapacek”, post to instagram with the hashtag #DresdenNeighborhoodSAL and/or link up below! If you’re ok with me sharing your version of the Dresden Neighborhood please let me know! I love to do round ups on the blog.