From drab to fab

I can't believe this is my first post of 2012, so let me take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year!


First off here's some snowdrops in my Mother in law's garden.  Mine aren't even poking through the ground yet but at least these are seasonal, not like the roses and such like I've seen flowering all winter in other people's gardens, it's been so mild 

I bought a dress on eBay last year but when it arrived it looked so drab it just went to the back of the wardrobe.  I got it out the other day and thought I'd have a go at making it more me.  This is the before picture; I look so frumpy

At first I thought I would add a Peter Pan collar in a light colour to brighten it up, but as I was looking through my stash I found a bit of blue fabric which was the exact colour of the flowers on the dress.  It was darker than I had in mind but I didn't have anything else suitable so I went with that

                            (this has come out brighter than it is in real life)


I made the collar the same way as the one here, but as I was attaching it to the already finished neckline of the dress, this time I made it as a separate collar.  To do this I stitched all the way round the edge, leaving a four inch gap on the back neck edge to turn it through.  I was going to slip stitch this opening up and hand sew the collar to the dress, but after I'd top stitched round the outer edge in black to tie it in with the background colour, I decided to topstitch the collar on, which closed the gap at the same time, and had the added bonus of making sure the collar laid flat.
The dress was a bit shapeless but it's got no zip (it just pulls over the head), so I couldn't take it in too much for fear of not being able to get in and out of it.  I just took the centre back seam in at the waist, tapering out to the top and bottom.
To pull it in a bit more I wanted to make a belt out of the blue fabric to go with the collar, but there wasn't enough, so I made a self fabric belt from the off cut from shortening the dress and added a narrow strip of the blue down the middle.  I've put some velcro on to fasten the belt.
And this is the result

Hopefully there won't be such a long gap to my next post!