Well, I found a dress on eBay from a great Chinese seller. They really were so considerate; they reassured me that my dress would get to me on time, and they even included a little Christmas card with a bear-in-a-Santa-hat ornament. The tracking was right on, the price was EXTREMELY good (good enough to make me feel a little guilty about potential exploitation), and the dress is pretty well-made. I should have gotten a size smaller, though, but it was too late to do a return so I made do. Because of reasons that are obvious to most of my readers, I keep my shoulders and chest covered up, even in evening wear. This dress was VERY low-cut and had spaghetti straps, so I had to figure out a clever way of either altering it to have shoulders and sleeves or finding something pretty to wear over it. I decided on the Occam's Razor approach and bought a couple of sequin appliques from another eBay seller, thinking I'd be able to fill in the neckline with something like that.
Well, the appliques were stitched onto a lovely mesh fabric, but it wasn't stable enough to work for what I needed and there was no really effective way to attach them to the thin straps of the dress. I rooted through my stash ("I KNOW I have red satin in here SOMEWHERE!" I said over and over to myself as I rooted) and found some red satin and a hot-fix rhinestone applique leftover from a couple of earlier projects. I folded a rectangle of satin and applied the rhinestones and then hand-stitched it into the low V of the neckline. Because the dress was still too big, and I didn't have time to alter it, I wore a red cap-sleeved camisole from Down East Basics (their sizing seems arbitrary and annoying, and their skirts and dresses are still rarely long enough on me, but since I only wear the camis under things, it was ok) and found a black ruffled bolero with a bit of a 1930s feel from yet another eBay seller. Because the train was a little cumbersome, I sewed a ribbon loop into the center back seam and carried the thing around on my wrist all night. It worked really well and kept people from stepping on me.
At some point, I'll actually alter the dress so it fits better, but I wore it to two parties (the Final Gasping Death Rattle Party of Doom and a New Year's Eve party) and got a lot of compliments on it. I'm pleased with the results, and here is a rather blurry picture taken toward the end of the New Year's Eve party to show you:
1 comment:
Hurray for fabulousness!
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