Biting the Bullet

I've been awfully quiet about that dress, haven't I?

What's the difference between a seamstress and someone who knows how to sew? A seamstress makes clothing that fits. If I can get this dress altered to fit my daughter I will consider myself a seamstress. Right now I am just a gal who knows how to operate a sewing machine.

 I haven't admitted defeat. I've been trying to build up my nerve. I had my daughter come over and try the dress on so I could determine how much altering it needed. Come to find out it was 3 1/2" too big around. That's a lot. The front of the dress is so busy, with pockets, pleats and ruffles, I decided to limit my alterations to the side seams and back darts. To accomplish this I would need to do some serious dismantling of those areas. First I had to remove the black ribbon which also involved detaching some of the lining from the zipper.

I needed to take the side seams in 1/2" under each arm and decrease that seam to 3/8" at the waist and then taper that down until it met the existing seam at the top of the pocket. Here is how that new seam looks.

You can see that I have not yet altered the lining to match the dress. 

Then I set about taking in the waist 1" at each of the back darts and extending the darts a total of 5 1/2". This photo shows the existing darts and the marks where I'll sew the new ones. The holes along the new markings are from the basting stitches. I basted the proposed seams and darts then had my daughter try the dress on before removing the basting and sewing the final seams. See! I CAN be taught.

Here is a photo of the new super long extended dart.

And here is how the top of that dart looks from the right side.

Don't worry. That seam at the waist will be covered up once I reattach the black ribbon. That's all the nail biting action for today. I have a cannelloni to devour. I promise to post photos of my daughter wearing the dress before the 15th. If I pull this off, that is.