maybelaughter
Familiar Face
- Messages
- 57
- Location
- missouri
Lulu-in-Ny said:Weird... that is exactly the question I came on here to ask.
I have a beautiful navy blue dress for the mid-40's, and it fits me perfectly. Unfortunately, it has a sizable hole in the fabric. (not a seam rip) I was considering having someone turn it into a pattern so a new one can be made, but I'm really nervous about it. I know it's silly because I can't wear it anyway, but still...
I'd like to hear some success stories (or dire warnings, as the case may be) about this before I proceed.
Thanks!
i once bought a perfectly fitting dress at a little flea market, it was amazingly cheap, and had the best pockets ever (i'm a sucker for pockets...) i was excited! when i went to wear it, the fabric just started coming apart.
i carefully took out the seams, laid the individual pieces out flat, and traced the pieces onto paper. i used this to create my own pattern, and made a dress just like it with new-won't-fall-apart fabric. the only problem i encountered was my tendency to make my seam allowances smaller than they should be, and having things end up a bit looser than they should, but that's easily fixed. also, i only took half of the dress apart, so i could still use the other half for reference to make sure i put the pockets together properly (they were integrated into the body in an odd way...). if you attempt something like this yourself, you might want to snap some photos during the process, or draw up some diagrams to help you remember how it was put together. i'm not sure if seamstresses will do something like this for you, but i do know it can be done.
and once the pattern has been made, you can always stitch the dress back along the same lines, if you want to keep it in it's original dress-shape (as long as the fabric isn't too far gone along the seams).