A Modest Princess

 

I found this gorgeous white spaghetti strap dress at the Thrift Outlet for 25 cents and having picked up a purple shirt for 25 cents on a previous trip to the Thrift Outlet, it seemed a perfect fit for adding sleeves and a little color to this dress.

First I seam ripped the purple shirt, removing the collar and front panels. The sleeves and back I left alone as I planned to use them as is.

I traced the shoulder seam and created a pattern for the front yoke.

I seam ripped out the shelf bra out of the dress.

Having adjusted the side seams which came out as I removed the shelf bra, having noticed they gaped slightly previously I sewed them back up taking the sides in slightly.

Because the elastic came out when I removed the shlef bra, I pinned and sewed a new casing for the elastic across the back and threaded the elastic back through and hand stitched it securely in place and sewed up the small openings.

I then pinned the front yoke pattern I designed onto the remaining shirt fabric, there wasn’t quite enough but as I knew my pattern was bigger than necessary I cut it out and hoped for the best, there was always more fabric on the back of the shirt if I needed.

I next reused one of the seam casings to sew across the new front neckline, I also sewed one across the back neckline as that had come off when seam ripping the shirt – except I later changed this as the neck opening was too small and I decided that white would look better than purple for around the neckline.

I then sewed the shoulder seams and front half of the cap sleeve seam to the new front yoke.

Because this refashion is for myself, I didn’t have the luxury of pinning the dress to the now completed top as it’s too difficult to pin on oneself so I put a couple of pins in the front and then took the dress off to do the rest, and so I first basted so that I could try it on for a fitting before sewing into final position.

I seam ripped off the white tie backs and replaced them with a purple sash from the shirt also this is when I realized the neckline I had created was too high and I decided it was too solid purple so I seam ripped the white tie backs open, cut a new neckline and used the white tie backs to trim the neckline.

Turned out the neckline was a little gaping, so I made two small pleats to hold it in the desired position.

I then machine sewed the purple top to the lace dress.

After removing the basting I went back around and hand stitched the lace down so that it would lay flat and not stick up.

I also hand stitched the front of the purple waistband both top and bottom because it did not naturally sit high enough and left a gap under the lace trim on the dress and looked odd.

After wearing the dress once I realized that the back rode up a lot when I sat down, so I decided to extend it with some eye lace from another 25 cent find at the Thrift outlet, an eyelet lace skirt. I first measured the desired added length and cut it off the bottom of the skirt.

Finally I pinned and sewed the extension to the lining of the dress creating a layered lace look.