Hello Hive

So this is me stealing something from my best friend, @gloriaolar 🤣😂. She bought the fabric a long time ago and gave it to her tailor to help her sew it and as at that time I was a real beginner in sewing and wasn't sure if I could make this outfit for her well enough. The dress is simple but then I didn't have the courage to use a scissors in someone else fabric and only used my clothes and fabrics to practice.

I really damaged a lot of clothes and fabrics back then, but that hardly happens now. This is a measure of how much better my skills have gotten over time. Having given her clothes to an experienced tailor, the unexpected still happened.

The tailor sewed the dress, but it wasn't her perfect size, it became shorter with a lot of errors than we expected. I was surprised to see that even experienced tailors can make mistakes, and this is so terrible that my friend could not wear her dress. She then gave it to me to help her reshape it.

I did all I could to restore the cloth, but it was all to no avail; there were no extra allowances, and the other mistakes couldn't be corrected. I blamed myself and wished that I had tried my best to make the outfit in the first place. Maybe I would have done a better job even as a beginner.

The dress has remained with me for about two years now, and while I have been working constantly to declutter my space, I found it and decided to rework it to a smaller size. The fabric is lovely and hasn't faded even in storage.

Here is where the hard labor begins.
Ripping out the older seams took me several hours because I was careful so as not to cause further damage.

Having done that, I traced my body size measurements on the cloth and cut it all over again.

A sleeve pattern was necessary here if I didn't want to damage the sleeve completely.

I was lucky to have a bias strip at home, which I used to turn the necklines.

I joined the various seams, then attached the lower bodice to the dress. The fullness of the initially large size had to be pleated on the lower side of the clothes since I had a smaller physique

Next was the fight to fix a zipper on a thin and yet stretchy fabrics.

I didn't inform her that I wanted to use her fabrics but went ahead to make this before showing her the new look of the dress on her WhatsApp page. I am quite sure that she wouldn't believe that I still had them with me. That is how I sometimes pick things from her closet because our friendship is now more like a sister, and we feel free to use each other's items.

She will be glad that at least the dress found a good use and not be mad at me because she has several other clothes and she is more than kind enough to gift me this.
Only that, I already took the gift before asking for permission😂🤣