Lately, I have not had much luck with my secondhand eBay purchases. The disappointment when that parcel arrives to find it’s too big/too small/not the expected colour/ not the expected fabric (*delete as necessary).
I was excited to score this lovely M&S midi length dress in a beautiful drapey viscose in a black and white polka dot. BOOM – just what I was looking for.
So it arrives…. and, firstly, it’s navy – OK so not the end of the world but annoying when the description had said “black” and secondly for some reason I had bought a size smaller than I would normally wear… face palm emoji! I honestly don’t know what I was thinking….
As you can see, it’s a little on the tight side to say the least! Those buttons ain’t gonna do up!
So I have 2 choices – resell it or refashion/readjust it. To be honest, having had very little success in reselling, I can’t be bothered. Plus I do like the fabric, the shape and style, so I started to have a look at the construction of the dress to see what could be done.
I noticed there were 2 bust darts taking in around 3-4 inches before it skirt was attached. I thought it I could release the fabric in the darts, it would then fit my chest/waist. Then i would need to reattach the skirt lower down where it was wider. So, I picked up my trusty unpicker and set to work….
The trickiest part was to reattach the zip lower down than it’s original placement. I don’t have an invisible zipper foot so it’s not as close as where the zip was original attached at the top.
I am really happy with the result (I know, tell the face!) – a few puckers around the waist and I hadn’t thought about the splits being a little higher than I would go for but I may stitch those up slightly but I will definitely wear this now. A dress saved from the back of the wardrobe!
