The Brown Tuxedo Dress

Hello Readers. Today's post is a brown knit dress, and what a great dress it could be. Check out this tuxedo ruffle! It is thick and heavy and bulky and it is right on my chest. This is really not flattering or comfortable. The dress is a nice knit that is like a comfy T-shirt, but the huge chest ruffle ruins it for me. It needs to go.

These sleeves have a big ruffle at the end. It dangles and flutters and generally gets in the way. They are annoying and unnecessary. They need to go too.

My first step was to remove the things I didn't like and then see what was left. I cut out the ruffled chest. It was sewn it so well I couldn't unpick all the stitches. So, CHOP! It's gone. I also cut the sleeve ruffles off. 

The dress itself is made of panels so there are seams all around the dress, it will be easy to put the dress back together.

I connected the open chest a few inches above the waist.  I had a deep V-neck now.  The center seam is new. I took out two panels and made a new connecting seam.

I pinned the edge of the V-neck under and stitched it down. I also finished the edges of the sleeves where I had cut off the ruffles.

Here is my dress on the dress form and on the floor to show what was removed. The chest ruffle, the sleeve ruffle and a couple panels from the front of the dress were all taken out.

Now I have a simple in-n-out dress. It has a nice waist and full skirt. It is comfy and easy to wear. I am diggin' it. It is very low cut and obviously needs a shirt under it but it is a million times better than the huge tuxedo chest ruffle it had before. I left the 3/4 length sleeves because they seemed appropriate for all seasons. 

The original length was not great for me so I shortened it about 8 inches and made a new hem.

Thanks for reading, now go make something fun for yourself.