Adding a Little Length to That Favorite Mini Dress

    I love TheOtherSparrows.  I love their sundresses in particular and each spring I look forward to seeing their new collection and usually purchase at least two.  In the early days of TOS, back when they were Larmoni, their sundresses were particularly short.  The average dress was only 30”/76cm long in my size. Considering that I wore most of my shirts at 27”/68.5cm--yes, that is a measurement I check before buying a shirt, and that at that time I lived in Japan and had to walk everywhere risking all kids of weather, (here's a sundress story about a day when the wind caught me by surprise and I had to improvise) you can see how that would be a concern, and I wasn't the only one.     

    I would see them pop up on resale sites with a careful warning that the dress barely covered a girl of average height.  I heeded that warning and didn't buy for about a year over concerns on the length, and when I did, I usually bought a size up just so I could have an extra inch or so even if it meant compromising on the bodice fit.  Customers spoke, TOS listened.  They started making their sundresses a few inches longer. And it's been so nice to finally buy my actual size!  They're still short for someone like me who's 5'6”/1.67m, but not indecently so, and I particularly like them in late summer, when I don't mind a little extra breeziness.

        Since they've fixed the issue, you may be wondering what this post is leading to.  Well, they still have a few dresses from the early days and last year I bought this Hot Dog Print Sundress.  You can see more pics from that post here.  As you can see from that post, it's very short.  So, short I only wore it one time last year, because I just didn't have an occasion where such a short dress would be appropriate.  But, it's so cute!  I just couldn't let it sit anymore, so here's what I did and I intend to do this with one more TOS dress, so I'll post those pics when I finish it. 

        Most dresses have a good couple of inches or so rolled up in their hemline.  So, the first thing I did was to take out the hem, iron it and then put in a new hem that was only 1/4”/.   That added one inch in length to the dress right away.  Then I found an ivory cotton eyelet trim that went nicely with the colors in the dress and added it to the hemline.  That added an extra inch.  So, while I know that two inches isn't exactly a mind blowing amount, it really goes a long way to making this a dress that I can wear more often, even on breezy days.

Shopping Info:  Favorite Hotdog Cute Retro Sundress, Dream of the Crop Cardigan from ModCloth