Sunday, November 16, 2008

Dress alterations

Many dresses from a few years ago do not have the elongated bodices everyone asks for nowadays and this usually leaves the skirt too long. The following is an example of a simple alteration that can be done to a (second hand) dress that might not fit in the lower skirt-area.

BEFORE:


In the before pic you can see that the upper body seems to fit, but the skirt is too long. The skirt is also a bit too wide and heavy and is collapsing on itself in the front (which needs to be a stiff, straight panel, not a wobbly one).
I decided to take the length of the hem and re-stitch the hemline in a black satinstitch. The front panel was also re-stiffened when I opened it up at the hem, making it nice and crisp again.

AFTER:




The nice thing about this dress is that is was made "economical". There are ties in the back that can cinch in the waist and the cuffs on the sleeves can be adjusted up or down. This dress was made with growing children and multiple years of usage in mind.

Thank you Debbie, for letting me work on your dress. I hope you will love and wear it for a long time!