A Dress to grow in....

Last summer my awesome cousin, (Thanks Deelisa!!) called me and told me to get down to a princess dress sale being held in a parking lot on state street. So I went and all of them were just $5.

 

 

So of course I bought three. What a deal. However in order to get them big enough for her not to grow out of them by the end of summer I had to get the large size which was also about 10 inches too long for her. And since she grows like a weed I didn't want to chop them off and have them be too short by next summer. (I had already fixed the blue on in this picture, but lucky for you I'm lazy and haven't fixed the white one so you can see how long it is. ;) )

Here's what I did....

 

First I measured how wide around the dress was and it divided evenly into 6 so I would have 2 gathers in front and back and 1 on each side. (Perfect.) Then I measured how much it had to come up...10 inches, then  added 3 inches because it was going to swoop down and I didn't want that dragging. So my number was 13 inches. I measured and drew a line then pinned the sheer overlay to the underlining. 

 

Then I sewed 2 lines 1/4" apart with a gathering stitch. I DID back stitch at the beginning. (I started my stitch at where the overlay started.) And please don't mind how crooked the lines are, I had a little girl sitting on my lap "helping". :)

 

Then I simply pulled my threads and tied off the ends.  Then just because it would probably be a while until I needed to lengthen it again and I didn't want them to come undone, I sewed in the center of the 2 gathered lines with a normal stitch. Just to be safe it didn't come undone. Sorry no picture.

 

 

Here's what it looked like when I finished with that. But it still needed something...

 

 

So I simply tacked bows at the top of each gather. You can even just safety pin them on too.

 

It added just what I wanted.

 

So here is the finished dress. But how did she like it....

 

She loved it.

 

Now she is "perfectly ready" (in her words) for her friends Sophia Princess party next week. :)

 

 

Until next time....