On of the funnest (for me) ways of enhancing reality is to alter clothing! I've had a blast the last few weeks with some super fun projects! The one for today's post was a special treat! My friend Kelley Moore was hosting a Prom Party, and this dress was the perfect piece for my Chelsea to wear to said party! Problem was that it was a wee bit too small! We all know those dames of the 40's were under so much girdling corseting pressure that it would take an army to get the zipper closed!
So we had a few bugs to work out before our dress was ready for another appearance at the Prom in 2010!
The zipper was broken, the boobs were too high and too pointy, and the dress needed to be let out about 4 dress sizes.
Awesome! So the first attack was this HUGE bow on the back. Ripping it out gave me some fabric to use and cleaned up the back of the dress. The zipper was next- it turned out that it just needed a little love and wax, and then it was working well!
The pointy boobs were going to be a little tricky!
I rounded out the darts towards the neckline, and actually added another two darts from the armhole into the center front to make the bust shape more modern and fitted.
There was not enough fabric in the seams to just let out a little extra- so after opening up the construction-
I pinned the dress to the form and inserted tracing paper into the hole- to make a pattern!
I cut out the traced shape and then cut it into strips to expand it- this was to create a piece that would have gathering like the dresses bodice.
After cutting, gathering, ironing and inserting, the finished piece turned out quite well! Best part was, atleast from my perspective, that there was enough leftover from the bow to make a bowtie and cumberbun for Chelseas' date!
