A ModestProject: Next Dress Makeover

Here is the next dress makeover (yes, it's a different dress):

This was also a strapless dress. By lucky coincidence, the color was an exact match to the previous dress, so I could use the same shawl for the fix.

The fix was done almost exactly the same way as the one in the previous post, except that I cut the strap narrower this time (13" instead of 14" wide), made the pleats narrower, and added another pleat (since the pleats on the dress were narrower and there were more of them, I wanted to try to make it match). After completing this makeover, I decided I actually like the strap wider, and I'm not sure if it's worth it to do multiple small pleats - it adds a lot of time and fussing, and they are harder to get even and symmetrical.

More views:

A Modest Project: First Dress Makeover!

Last time, I told you that I was starting on a ModestProject - modifying about 40 dresses to be modest. Here is my first dress makeover!


This gorgeous red dress was your basic strapless design (you can easily see where the lines of the original dress were, before I added the wide starps). But - it came with a matching shawl! Since the challenge in any makeover is to find matching/coordinating cloth, the shawl gave me some great material to work with.

The other challenge in any makeover is to work with the design of the dress, so your makeover doesn't end up looking like a bad fix that was just slapped on top. Since this dress had pleats on the bodice, I thought the makeover should have similar pleats as well.

How I did it:
* Cut two rectangles across the 17" wide shawl, 14" (rectangles ended up being 14" x 17"
* Sewed them into tubes (now they were 7" x 17")
* Pleated one end into wide pleats to match the dress
* Stitched the pleats down about 1" from the end of the rectangle
* Hand stitched the pleated end to the front of the dress
* Put the dress on my mannequin, pulled the rectangle up over the shoulder and down to the back of the dress, draped in place, adding a pleat and pulling tightly so it looked good to me.
* Hand-stitched it in place on the back of the dress as well.

This was unexpectedly fussy - there was a lot of "twiddling" - but I was really pleased with how it turned out.

Here are some more views (I ran out of batteries on the camera before I got to the back, but the back is almost exactly like the next makeover, which I'm about to post):

A Modest Project

Just this week, I had the opportunity to purchase a number of absolutely gorgeous prom dresses at an unbelievable price.

Just one problem - they are all strapless.

But I know a deal when I see one, so I got them anyway. There are enough of them to start a modest prom dress rental business, and that's what I'm going to do.

Now I have a PILE of dresses to alter. So I have my work cut out for me (no pun intended!)

Follow along while I complete this project!