Sunday, August 30, 2009

Dress Rescue 2: Black Velvet Dress

While I was browsing through the racks at Savers, some black crushed velvet caught my eye. I pulled it out and found this:

I was rather taken with the silhouette (fitted bodice + full swirly skirt=win). I liked the scoop neck, and it's a great length. Alas, there were a couple of drawbacks. The first being that it, like yesterday's dress, buttons down the front. ARRRGH! Once again, the nefarious button-front rears its ugly head. This must be dealt with. It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but trust me, it's not of the good.

And, also like yesterday's dress, it has weird sleeves. They're sort of puffy/bunchy at the top, and uncomfortably tight at the bottom. They hit at that weird length that's just about two inches about the wrist. They are just bad, bad sleeves. Sleeves of EVIL. Armed with only my pinking shears and imagination, I must defeat these sleeves before they can take over the world. (Or just be fugly forevermore, which is just as bad.)

So, how am I going to rescue this dress? Well, first things first, the buttons go. I'm going to remove all the buttons and the edge with the buttonholes, then seam the skirt down the middle from the waist. Above the waist I'm going to put grommet tape so I can lace it up the front with a variety of colored ribbon. I'll cut the sleeves to cap sleeves and maybe put a little white lace trim beside the grommet tape for contrast. I'm looking forward to this one- it should make a very pretty, versatile goth/medieval style dress that should be unique without being costume-y. Come back tomorrow for part 3 of Dress Rescue: Fort Collins Edition.

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