WARDROBE REFRESH #2

I made this pink dress ages ago. It’s from a 1960’s pattern that was a bit too big for me, so I sized it down to fit me. In my re-sizing, I didn’t take the neckline into consideration and made it a bit too small. With the mandarin collar, it not only looked too small, but it felt really uncomfortable.

In all these years, I’ve only worn it a few times which is a shame since I just love the pink stretch cotton fabric, the button detailing and the sleeves. In order to refresh this dress, I decide to cut the entire collar off. When I think about it, I don’t even like mandarin collars!

I tried the dress on and marked a new neckline with chalk. When I took the dress off, I refined the neckline to be symmetrical and cut away that tight mandarin collar. Rather than create a new collar, I thought I would just do a simple bias tape trim. Unbelievably, when I looked in my stash of fabric, I found the scrap fabric from this dress and there was enough to make my trim from it. It’s nice to know that my scrap hoarding comes in handy every ten years or so!

Now, I’m totally excited to wear this spring perfect dress.