This velvet Salvation Army nightgown is straight up sad.
♪She wore bluuuuueeee velveeeeeet♪
What will I do with this thing?
Initially I bought it because it was like, $5, and plain enough that whatever I did to it would be an improvement. Plus, the color is radiant, which goes well with my dealthy pallor. Since I look like a Victorian ghost, I need to wear bold colors, which is something I learned from AlexandrasGirlyTalk’s “The Art of Color.” You simply MUST watch it, too. Here’s the link to the episode on her YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/2xvmtMG1E8U
This video will CHANGE YOUR LIFE in the best way
This dress did not have much going for it: It was too long, there was some itchy tulle fabric in those 80’s puff sleeves, and it was big enough to house a family of 4. However, it did have pockets! Often when you’re taking in a dress, you might think you have to sacrifice the pockets, but I’m going to show you an easy way to make your dress fit without losing the pockets!!
Well, it was made in America, so I guess that’s a plus too
To get the dress form fitting, I took a dress that fit me well and had a similar square neckline, and laid it on top if the blue circus tent dress.
Turning the dress inside out
Julian helped me lay the fitted dress as a guide on top of the blue one
Then I started outlining the fitted dress onto the blue dress with a chalk pencil. You can see I left some room around the fitted dress for seam allowance. Also, the blue dress doesn’t have much stretch to it, and I didn’t want to put in a zipper, so I needed some wiggle room.
Giving it about an inch on each side
Now, you can see the pockets in one of the above pictures. I laid those out to the side, because what I am essentially going to do is extend the line of the pockets to meet the line where my new seam will be.
Extending the pocket line to the new seam!!
Since velvet likes to get dusty fluff everywhere when cut, I decided to serge the seams rather than trim and sew them. That would keep the fluff level down, and seal the raw edges.
A little serge-ery
It’s best to take the sides in BEFORE you raise the hem of anything, because you’ll lose some length in the taking-in process, and end up with something shorter than you want it to be if you hem it first. So once the sides were taken in, it was then time to raise the hem. I like things just slightly above the knee in general, so that’s where we’re headed here.
Chop!
Pin!
Sew!
You’ll notice I have the pins perpendicular to the seam. This is the best way to pin, because it minimizes your fabric layers shifting around under the needle. Some sewing machines even allow you to sew right over the pins (like mine), but if yours does not, then just remove the pins as you go.
Now that the side seams and hem were done, I contemplated what to do about the sleeves. I was on the fence about keeping them, because they aren’t terrible, but they just aren’t my style.
Visiting my mom’s house, where she has tons of mirrors
First I had to get rid of the itchy tulle that no sane person would want near their armpit.
Just why???
Then I serged the sleeve openings, which I didn’t manage to get a picture of, but you get the idea. Once they were serged, I turned the seam towards the wrong side of the fabric and stitched it down (so that you can’t see the white serger thread). I tend to only thread my serger with only white or black thread, because it’s such a pain to change it, so that’s why my serged seams never match the fabric! I don’t think it matters though, because it’s on the inside anyway.
Stitching down those sleeves
Once the sleeves were done, that was it! Then the dress went on a fashion shoot in my mom’s yard.
I think it’s obvious that I do not know how to do model poses, where you show your best angle and make yourself look thinner, but I can goober it up fairly well, as evidenced below:
These shoes were $10 from Buffalo Exchange!
I only wore this dress to the yard because I didn’t want to wear blue to the Black Lives Matter protest in New Orleans, for obvious reasons. If this dress weren’t polyester, I would have dyed it a plum color. I changed right out of it and went down town to the march, because I feel very strongly that if white people are the problem, white people are the answer, and that means I need to step up and do better for the black community. So! Support black artists, authors, podcasters, politicians, business owners, and laws/policies that create a more just world for them. This is not a political issue, it’s a human rights issue, and that’s all of our problem. I submit this poem by Martin Niemoller to illustrate that point:
Now that I’m off my soapbox, what do you think of the dress? I hope you are making lemonade out of whatever lemons you find at the Salvation Army! I would love to see.
Bye for now!!!
Moonflower DIY 