Altering a dress for the Roaring Twenties

I had such fun altering the Atonement dress for Carolyn that I thought I'd take on another alteration project. This time I found a dress in the thrift store that I thought had potential to be altered into a look for the Roaring Twenties!

As it is, it is an tube. Unflattering, completely unstylish. But the drop waist and the bib collar make me think it has potential. I already cut off the hideous sleeves and removed the ginormous shoulder pads. But as you can see, it needs more work. It is way too wide one me, lacking the sleekness that was part of that twenties style. Looks like I'll finally get the chance to take something in at the sides! But it has a lace overlay, which makes things tough. Probably the proper way to do it would be to undo the side seams and take them in separate and rejoin them. But I don't want to do that.

Instead, I flipped the dress inside out and put it on Adelaide, my dress form. The I took pins and pinned it down her sides from the bottom of the armcye to down to the sash around the drop waist. I took care to keep it smooth, pinning it and repinning it three times until it was right. The new long dressmaking pins I bought were great, they are so luxurious to use! As per usual, I pinned it as closely to Addie as I could, because something a little too tight on her should be just right on me.

I haven't tried to take it off her yet, because I'm a bit nervous that getting something this tight off will shake the pins loose. I might draw a line on it to follow on my sewing machine to make a new side seam, or I might put in a basting stitch by hand. I haven't decided yet.

I am certain, however, that I am going to dye this dress once I've altered it to my satisfaction. No self-respecting Roaring Twenties dress would ever be white. I had such nice success dyeing a lace dress with the Mary Stone ball gown I'd love to do it again. I bought a bottle of aquamarine dye at Jo-Ann Fabrics; for some reason aquamarine seemed right.

I may even have a use for this dress in the near future. I won't say anything about it until I'm certain, but that would be a nice confluence of events.