Making "The Dress" Fit Even Better

Prom alterations are one of my favorite things to do because every dress is different from one to the next -- similar yes but identical, never.

Beading has become a new love of mine. I've done minor repairs in the past, replaced beads here and there and added a few beads to a bodice on my daughter's prom dress a few years ago. One thing I've learned about beading is there's not a right way of doing it, it all depends on the pattern and you can make that up as you go along adding different beads in all kinds of sizes, color, and "degrees" of sparkle --- it's all personal preference.

This past prom season I worked on a dress that was almost as beautiful as the sweet junior who was going to wear it, almost. The dress fit like it was custom made except in two areas - the front of the bodice and the straps.

The dress gapped between the side and front princess seams - the two long curved seams sewn into the front and or back of a dress to add shaping. The back of the dress fit perfectly. Taking it in at the side seams would pull the gap in but make the back tight, too tight. Standing back and looking again, I thought why not make a dart right at the widest part of the gap. The seam of the dart would be camouflaged by beading and the back of the dress would not be effected.

Because of the beading, I decided to just pinch the gap and measure how much to take it in. Then, I marked a dart on the inside with a blue water soluble pen and sent a little prayer to the sewing gods that the pen would indeed hold true to its name and rinse out when I was finished.

Next I ran a basting stitch to hold the beads in place that were not being removed. After the beads were secured along the 'V', I started removing the gems, seed beads, and sequins... carefully.

 I made an identical dart in the lining of the dress.

Once the beads were removed, I folded the dart in on itself along the 'V' lines and stitched - doing the same to the lining of the dress.

And finally... began beading.  I used the same sequence as what was on the dress -- sequin, seed bead, seed bead, seed bead, sequin with a few big jewels attached in spaces that looked like they needed a gem -- personal preference. The beads and gems were sewn using matching thread and a beading needle.

Working from the bottom to the top, I filled in the space.  Beading slows me down and every bead added adds a little bit more beauty.

Finished.
If you look closely, you can see the black basting stitches of where I secured the beads that I didn't want to remove.

Basting stitches removed.
Looking closely again, you can see the dart but I think the beads do a good job camouflaging the stitch line.

The straps needed to be taken up about an inch on each side.  I needed to remove beads to make the adjustment.

and then replaced them when the straps were the right length.  And all blue marks disappeared,  thankfully.

Thank you sweet Tori,  for asking me to help with your dress this year.

Adjusting the fit and adding some sparkle

You've found the perfect dress, you knew the moment you laid on eyes

on it. If you've ever been to a prom store during the peak of prom season, it's quite an experience. In some stores, only sales associates can touch the dresses -- those brave souls who accompany their teen are sent to the 'waiting' room while their beautiful, almost grown, doe-eyed babies walk to the dressing room with the sales associate.

A dress that was zipped up and secured, looks great from the front - modeled for a moment, getting a thumbs up from the entourage and breathing a deep sigh -- the hunt is over. For some, bringing the dress home and trying it on again can be a whole different story.  

This is the story of a prom dress I recently worked on.  The dress looked beautiful from the front but from the back it just didn't fit right. And it was a struggle to zip up, once zipped it curved and pulled - something not noticeable to the teen or her mom in the busy prom store. 

There needed to be some room added to the dress, but not too much because the front of the dress fit and I didn't want to add too much to the back to make the front change.  But how?  It needed to be hemmed so I knew I had enough fabric from the bottom to work with the skirt of the dress but what about the bodice?  I found tulle that when layered was a very close match to the dress.  Since it needed room from the base of the neck to the waistline, I didn't think adding to the side seams would help across the base of the neck so I decided to add pieces to each side of the zipper.  

This is the dress unzipped on my dress form. 

First step was removing the zipper, carefully so I didn't create any runs or snags in the chiffon.

I made a pattern of the piece I needed for the bodice and placed it on the tulle. To get a close match to the original, I layered five pieces of tulle. Surprisingly, it didn't add any bulkiness and didn't look any thicker than the original dress.

Once cut, I stitched each new piece to the bodice. This is the first step in a french seam ~ a french seam is a three step process - 1) First you sew the seam wrong sides together   2) Trim close to the row of stitching and 3) Fold the piece together along the seam, right sides together and stitch again. A french seam is usually used when sewing light, easy to fray, fabrics such as chiffon. In this case, tulle is not easy to fray but I wanted to hide the cut edge. I could have trimmed close to the seam but thought a french seam would be stronger.

After trimming close to the first row of stitching, the two right sides were sewn together encasing the first row of stitching.

This is not a pretty view - still a work in progress.  I wanted a continuous line from the added tulle to the pieces added to skirt and I wanted to make sure the zipper came together evenly. Once it did, I was not going to mess with it anymore and the puckered line in the chiffon was steamed and lightly pressed out after I finished beading. 

I started beading at the waistline making flowers out of the larger beads.

Filling in with smaller beads and crystals as I went along.

I did not take a lot of pictures as I was beading because honestly I wasn't thinking about pictures, I was thinking about making sure I beaded as close to the original design as I could so it wouldn't be obvious that new beading was added. My hope was the end result would look like the dress was never altered. And the two seam lines along the zipper were there for design purposes only not because something was added.

I drew my pattern where I was going to place the beads with a water soluble marker, it made beading so much easier.  The crystals are hot fix Swarovski Crystals - I love working with them because every time I add them, it just makes whatever I'm working on a little bit more elegant. To match the original beading, I just took a few samples to a craft store and matched them up. They are all hand stitched, nothing is glued in place except the hot fix crystals.

Thank you to this beautiful senior heading to her prom, I loved working on your dress!