A Modest Princess

With only days to spare, Makayla brought over her strapless prom dress in need of a #ModestyFix. Luckily she just wanted simple straps with cap sleeves and I even had leftover fabric from Devyn’s Winter Ball Dress which just happened to match her dress!

I first tried with a pattern I had used for a previous cap sleeve but the problem with adding straps and a cap sleeve to a strapless dress is that the bodice of the dress doesn’t move – and so the sleeve ends up limiting arm movement. This fabric had stretch and I thought that would be enough but it wasn’t so I elongated the cap pattern.  Pictured are the rectangle for the strap, and the elongated cap sleeve pattern.

First I hemmed the edges, just rolled and sewed for both the inside of the strap and the outside edge of the cap sleeve.

Next comes the only tricky part, fitting the sleeve to the strap. I had marks from where I’d attached the smaller cap I’d tried and knew I wanted to stay in that size, and fit the cap sleeve into the same place adding some pleats and creating a modest flutter look and allowing for more arm mobility.

I first pinned the edges and middle, then made then eased the remaining fabric to fit and used lots of pins.

It was too tricky to take pictures while sewing, but as I removed a pin, I created a small pleat and sewed over it.

Next, a small piece of the back needed to be hemmed.

Here is the finished sleeve ready to be sewn into the dress.

The final step was to hand stitch the front and back strap into the dress with as small and unnoticeable stitches as possible. I used matching color thread, not clear nylon. From previous experience that is more difficult to sew with clear nylon and the end result would be about the same, you really can’t see the stitching unless you look up close. The straps were sewn in at an angle, as we’d discovered from a fitting that if the straps were not tight enough on the inside edge they would fall right off.  The outside edge was left looser to allow for mobility.

And there we have pleated cap sleeves added to a strapless dress!

And Makayla is a #ModestPrincess ready for Simply Prom!