Adding Sleeves and Back Panel to White Formal Dress

Apparently you need two white dresses for your wedding these days! Actually the wedding ceremony was in the morning and so a 2^nd dress was selected for more comfortable wearing later in the day. This one needed some very last minute alterations as Emily bought the dress the afternoon before the wedding and texted me on her way home asking if I could help add sleeves to it! Luckily I had several sleeve patterns ready to show her and even one already cut out that we could pin on for a fitting. And as Emily had been able to find exact matching fabric to the dress it was quite easy to add sleeves and a back panel as this one also had a too-low back.

Having made the selection of a sleeve pattern, I cut it out of the matching white sequin fabric.

And cut a matching pattern out of some leftover lining. I only had cream fabric so this affected the color of the sleeves a little but we didn’t have time to get any additional fabric so it’s lucky I had what I did or else the sleeves would have been sheer.

I didn’t even hem the edges of the sleeves and although I’m sure some of the cut sequins fell off the fabric didn’t appear to fray. So I just lined the two layers up and pinned them inside the strap of the dress. I started at the top of the strap and worked my way down each side.

Next I hand sewed the sleeves into the strap. I didn’t even have to use invisible thread because there were may layers of the dress and I was only sewing to the inside.

One sleeve finished – it does not join at the bottom.

I then cure a more elongated sleeve pattern because this is what I had laying around when we were planning for the back panel and having stuck the pattern in it seemed to work well. I used the edge of the sequin fabric for the top and hand stitched the hem using invisible thread.