A Modest Princess

Alterations by Seamstress, total cost: 300$

1) Hemming

This dress has a lace hem, and that needed to be preserved so the seamstress cut the bottom of the dress, cutting around the lace pattern and resewed it higher on the dress. The charge for this hemming was 150$.

2) Adding Sleeves

It took three tries for the seamstress to create the longer sleeve that Emily was looking for – a much more elegant sleeve and a great addition to the dress. The lace used was beaded and purchased at a specialty fabric store, at 40$/yard. The color didn’t quite match that of the dress and the sleeves were not created with a lining. The charge for adding sleeves was 100$.

The final sleeves were gorgeous and it’s hard to imagine the dress without them.

3) Bustle

The seamstress ‘bustled’ the dress for 50$. This entailed sewing on a hook and creating a stitch right below the lacing of the dress to hook the dress up so the train wouldn’t drag on the ground. When she tried it in at the seamstress’s it looked great, but when Emily tried the dress on at home her mother wasn’t able to find the stitch for the hook and instead tried hooking it to the laced back but it looked terrible, and made large bunches at her knees.

Modest Princess Solution = Safety Pin Bustle.

We came up with the idea of using a safety pin – and it was brilliant – we attached the safety pin on the inside of the dress and it made a great eye for the hook. (It turned out that after Emily took off the dress I found the thread eye the seamstress had put in but we all agreed that the dress looked much better with it bustled lower where we’d placed the safety pin).