The Coat of Arms dress was released in my pre-Selkie days. I only learned about it after the fact and it's very hard to come by in resale sites. So, I had to settle for one that was two sizes larger than what I wear and then alter it myself to fit my bust.
As much as I adored the print, it was so stinking short, I felt too embarrassed to wear it anywhere. Even with bloomers and even in summer. It just didn't fit my shape, my style, or my life. But, as I was cleaning out my clothes over the summer, I had to face some hard facts about my cottage puffs. I accepted the fact that as much as I love them I was never going to wear them as they were. My options were: to sell them, donate them, or (attempt to) fix them. I'm pretty much done reselling my clothes because I think it only encourages me to spend more, and donation didn't feel like the right route because I still really love the dresses. My final option was to alter it.
As I mentioned, this dress released some time ago, and it was difficult finding one the first time around. So, after all this time has passed, finding a second one seemed very unlikely, but I did manage to find one that the seller was willing to part with extremely cheap because they had gotten a few small stains on the skirt. I would not have paid full price for a dress I was going to scrap for parts and I could work around the stained part, so it was a win for everyone. Until I made a critical error.....
My procedure for adding this ruffle is quite simple: I cut the skirt off of one dress, fold it in half, iron it, cut it, sew those to halves together and now I have a long lean ruffle to sew instead of a short wide skirt. I learned an important lesson about cutting something off one dress to sew onto another. Make sure you have the right dress before you start cutting.
That's right, I was half way through cutting the skirt, when I got to the zipper and thought, "oh, hey, this person altered their dress just like I did---NOOOOOOOO!" Yes, I had just cut the skirt off of my own dress. I think if there had been another dress out there, I would have just bought it and started over, but there wasn't. My only avenue for salvation was to finish cutting the skirt off and then reattach it by hand. Which I did, and it was just as agonizing as it sounds. Then I put this project away for a few weeks, because I needed a break.
Since this is the time of year for yellows, I decided it was now or never and I jumped back in to this project. I removed one layer of organza from the under skirts so that the dress would lay flatter, attached the bodice to the remaining layers by hand, and then set about hand gathering and attaching this ruffle to the bottom, oh and also going back and taking the dress in after the cutting fiasco.
Even though this dress was waaaaaay more work than I bargain for, I am so pleased with results. In fact, I showed it to a friend who absolutely hates the puff dress style and instead of wrinkling her nose as she usually does at sight of these dresses, this time she smiled and said, "Oh, that is so tasteful, I love it!" And I do too. So, much in fact that even though this project went a little south, I am going to keep at it until I have transformed all my cottage puffs into wearable tasteful dresses.
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