An altered dress finish!

I have a well developed ability to take something simple and make it complex. I got this cute denim dress from Nordie’s Rack online for a very good price.

I am redoing my summer wardrobe a bit. My uniform for the last several summers has been easy, sleeveless dresses. Even though I do all kinds of athletic things, my arms are not what they used to be. I decided I needed to cover them up on occasion. So an easy fit, short-sleeved denim dress was at the epicenter of what I could wear on repeat, even when it’s 110.

Um, not quite what I expected, it was a little “sackier” than expected and this is sized down from my normal size. Nordies tends to vanity size. I really like the basic  idea of this dress, so the adventure started.

I thought all it needed was a long dart on each side front and back. Easy, right?

Glad I have a real mannequin; I put the dress on her and marked the waist and the bust apex. The pockets were a bit of a problem as I would have preferred for the darts to go up higher.

I marked the dart placement lines front and back; the top of the back darts just below my deltoids and the front darts met up with the pocket.

Past experience taught me that you need to go gentle on the dart size. Each dart took out an inch, so 4″ in total. This boxy dress could take that much.

Uh oh:

The flap on the right is askew! Ugh, HAD to be fixed. Believe it or not that took several hours. This thing is constructed like a Mac truck:

Each corner of the flap was reinforced! Why???

There it is, fixed and level. The photo makes it look askew but trust me, it’s even with the other.

I had some issues with the thread color. My “denim” thread was a bit too bright, and yes, it was noticeable. The bottom stitching shows what it looked like after I brought it to a color closer to the original.

There’s a reason why creatives have such a big stash of stuff. I took that browny guy in the lower left and colored atop the thread to get the right color.

You can’t tell in the photo, but on the left I have added the marker and on the right is the original color. IRL you can see this clearly.

I replicated the original stitching and there were some odd touches like this one. I don’t know the purpose, but I did it anyway.

I was working with sometimes 10 layers of stout denim and you bet I needed my needle puller!

And my Jean-A-Ma-Jig. As I approached that seam going from 4 layers to 10, without a thingy, the stitches would have been uneven as the presser foot tried to mount that hump.

Okay, thought I was done. Nope! Those sleeves are ridiculously long, beyond my elbows. I am used to having to “petite” clothing.

So there ya are, taken in, flap fixed, sleeves shortened, cute sandals (comfy!!). I had no idea how long this would take but I would guess I ended up spending 8 hrs on it. Sometimes you just don’t know until you get into it.

I am thankful to have a great machine to do this kind of work on, my BERNINA 770. Ten layers of heavy denim will make many machines falter. You also need good feet to get the best stitches in challenging situations like this. I also engaged my dual feed to put perfect, even stitches no matter how many layers of denim I put through the machine. The 12 wt poly YLI “Jeans Stitch” thread needed a 110 needle. This “simple” project was a challenge!

It’s cuter on than the photo and yes, it is still boxy, which I like. I don’t know how to do all that posing stuff, which I think looks a little silly anyway. It is a dress I will wear on repeat BUT, I will wear it for errands for a bit to make sure I am okay with the slight differences in thread color. It CANNOT look happy-hands-at-home!

But now I think it needs pockets…….

I’ll be linking up:

Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday
Finished or Not Friday