Wow! It's been a while since I posted last. Life happened and time got away from me, but I'm back now! Since I last posted, I have discovered ESTATE SALES! These are a-maz-ing! It's as if you get to pilfer through a stranger's earthly possessions! I wish I would have known about these long ago. They are so much better than yard sales. You get much better deals and find cooler stuff. All the ones I have gone to have had someone in the house that is a crafter or seamstress. SCORE! The first one I went to was at the house of a sewer/refashioner. There was a huge tote of fabric remnants and the closets were full of dresses that were a size or two too small. That didn't deter me though. Needless to say I was bottoms up in the fabric tote and elbow deep in that closet! With it being the last day of the sale, everything was 50% off. I bought everything I thought I could use. I ended up spending about $15 and my arms were full. This sale is where I found this beauty:
The only problem was this:
It wouldn't even come close to zipping.
I really loved this dress and I really wanted to wear it. I just had to figure out a way to make it bigger. I decided the best plan was to sew panels on each side to widen the dress evenly. I had hoped I could find that exact fabric on the internet somewhere and use it to make it wider. I searched but couldn't find it. Then, on Saturday, I went to a church yard sale. (Church yard sales are just as great as Estate Sales.) At this particular yard sale, I bought a lot of great fabric. It was "fill a bag for $1" and they handed me a big bag to put it all in 😀. Another score! That's where I found the fabric that would allow me to finally wear this dress.
Since the bottom of this dress mostly fit (it was a little tight getting it over my hips), the first thing I did was take my bust measurement. Then I measured the bust (armpit to armpit) of the dress and multiplied this number by 2 to get the total bust measurement of the dress. Then I subtracted the dress measurement from the bust measurement. I took that number and divided it by 2 since I want the fabric to be even on both sides.
For example: 44" Bust measurement, Dress measurement was 18" x 2= 36"
44"-36" = 8"
8"/2 = 4"
My side panels needed to be 4" on each side, so I cut them 4.5" each for seam allowance.
My dress is sewn with a seam at the bust, so I measured from the armpit to the bust seam and got 7". So I cut two pieces of fabric 4.5"x 7.5" (the extra 1/2 inch is for seam allowance)
The other two pieces were cut from the measurement of the bust to the hem of the dress.
4.5" x 27.5" (again, I added 1/2" for seam allowance)
Next, I had to open up the side seams with the seam ripper. I opened the seam on one side of the dress and put in a panel one side at a time.
I pinned the panel into the side of the dress. I pinned one side of the panel at a time. You could pin both sides of the panel and then sew, but I did it one side at a time.
I left about 1/4 inch of white fabric above the green fabric. This gave me enough white fabric to fold down twice to finish the seam when the panels were sewn in.
After I sewed the panels in to the dress, I sewed the short panel and the long panel together where they meet.
This is how it looked up to this point...
The next step was to fold the raw edge of the fabric at the top of the dress 2 times and sew a seam. This gives it a polished look and keeps the ends from fraying when washed.
I repeated all of that on the other side seam of the dress.
Then I folded the bottom hem of the dress twice and sewed a seam.
I tried the dress on once more and....
Yay! It zipped!!!! (I was so happy I may have jumped up and down)
I love my new dress!!!
