upcycled party dress

Fabric: cotton dress with poly (acetate?) lining and leftover poly (taffeta?) from ginaclarkstyle dress
Pattern: Oliver + S music box jumper, view A
Year: contemporary
Notions: interfacing, scrap piece of piping, 7 1/2-inch buttons
Time to complete: Longer than I care to admit.  Maybe 8 hours with the hand sewing.
Total cost: virtually nothing

Fenna has a guitar recital coming up, so a new fancy dress is needed.  Unfortunately, this dress is not quite wide or long enough to work well for the occasion.  I either have to buy her some leggings or, more likely, she'll wear something else.

The original dress has been around a few years.  I bought it at Macy's at the mall in my hometown in Ohio.  It's vintagey cute but never fit me very well, and Fenna's always liked it.  There's that surplice neckline and midriff band combination again, not my favorite.  It had a lining with a strip of tulle attached at the bottom to make the dress stand away from the body, a nice touch, which I also used in Fenna's dress.

pretty catch stitches

I thought I could cut Fenna's whole dress from my skirt, but she's not three anymore and you do need a considerable amount of fabric to make her clothes.  Luckily the leftover poly from my ginaclarkstyle dress matches the embroidery perfectly, and it's shiny and festive and I originally bought it for Fenna anyways.  The piping at the empire waistline is another lucky leftover that happened to be exactly the right length and in a nicely coordinating aqua.  I could have done a better job tucking up the ends of the piping at the back; I'll be sewing some trim over them once I hit Fiber Notion in Park Slope for some fancy bits that will cost more than the dress.

What a lovely, relaxing experience it was to sew this simple pattern-- only four pieces-- with the usual Oliver + S clear, detailed instructions for a beautifully finished garment.  No fitting to worry about and an appreciative recipient.  Yeah!  I ended up omitting the hem, adding an inch and a half to the length, because Fenna wanted it long.  I cut the skirt pieces with the hemmed edge of the original dress at the bottom, so I could just leave it as is, perfectly matched at one side seam and a little off at the other.

I was enjoying the process so much, I even hand sewed the back facings to the lining with a catch stitch, which took me forever.  I'm not in the habit of hand sewing, because it does take me forever and my slap dash garments don't seem worth the trouble.  I'd like to do more of it, though.  The hand stitches really elevate the dress, even if it is made out of leftovers of medium quality.

I've already received detailed instructions from Fenna for the next party dress: light yellowish green with a butterfly on each shoulder and a butterfly in the middle and, most importantly, a white ruffle at the bottom.  The ruffle should be wavy when she bounces up and straight when she bounces back down.  Might be a while until I get to that.