This $5 Goodwill dress has to be from the 1990’s. I can just see someone wearing it with a Blossom-style hat and some huge black Doc Martin’s. The tiny floral print, the empire waistline, and the loooooong skirt give me whiffs of Elaine from Seinfeld, or every character on Friends (Unpopular opinion: Seinfeld is way better than Friends). However, since I was a part-time toddler/full-time Nickelodeon fan in the 90s, I didn’t get to participate in the grunge trend when it first hit, so thank goodness for the current revival!
But.
This dress makes me feel naked.
I’m totally fine with strapless things on other people, but maybe working with kids who tug on your clothes to ask a question has finally affected me, because my immediate worry is that some way, somehow, my top is going to get pulled down. I need sleeves, or straps at the very least, and making some would also help address the length! I like maxi dresses, but the fabric of this dress is not very stretchy, and I have a long stride.
To start making the sleeves, I needed to remove some of the length. I laid the dress on the studio room floor and lined up the top of the bodice with the tiles on the floor, so I could use them as my straight-edge. To make the new hemline, I cut along the line where the tiles meet, kind of like they do at the cutting counter at JoAnn’s.
Next was your standard serging and sewing so the hem doesn’t ravel.
The hem was a quick fix, so next was to make those sleeves! I measured over my shoulder to see how long I needed to make them, and then cut them out. It came out to 17″, but I cut it at 18″ so I would have a 1/2″ seam allowance at both ends to work with.
I used the serger to tidy up the edges and then rolled them under once so that they wouldn’t ravel. After that I played around with how I wanted the sleeves to look.
I ended up choosing a kind of a fluttery butterfly sleeve. To do this I pleated both ends of the sleeves before stitching them to the bodice.
How did I know where to put the sleeves, your dying to know? I put on a tank top and marked where the straps align to the bodice. They’re kind of hard to see, but I marked the placements with safety pins.
The final step was just to attach the sleeves. I tucked them under the spots where I had marked them with safety pins, and top-stitched them down.
Ready for the big reveal?
It’s still a pretty simple 90’s dress, but one that’s much more wearable for me. Now I can rewind all my VHS’s while doing the Macarena and drinking a Surge in comfort, which is what I assume all 90’s adults were doing all the time.
Til next time!
~M
Moonflower DIY 