Belle's first dress

A couple of weeks ago, Auntie Em brought round this bit of fabric from her mum’s stash. 

I immediately paired it up with the fabric I had used for my younger daughters Victorian dress (that would be the lilac one) and it was a perfect combination.  So out came the Victorian skirt...already made so a bit of a time saver, and off we went to Belle’s house to get her measured. 

The first thing to do was shorten the skirt as the actress is a good 5” shorter than my daughter in the leg department (we have incredibly long legs in my family and my 5’6” daughter has an inside leg measurement of 34”).

I didn't want to do a permanent shortening as there is bound to be a time when daughter wants to wear the skirt again, so I thought of various ways I could take the length off yet make the process reversible.

The plan I came up with is similar to honeycomb smocking (there are many tutorials out there if you want to see how it’s done) but on a larger scale.

The fabric where the red pin is, is pinned to where the black pin is.  The green pin to the yellow pin and I did two lots of this for each section. 

I am lucky in the lilac skirt already had a square pattern in it so I didn't have to measure anything!  I then did a simple stitch to hold each fold in place.

The skirt is now 6” shorter but can be easily returned to its original length.

The bodice was the tried and tested one that I know I can put together in a couple of hours, but the whole effect was a bit bland for stage so out came the purple lace to form the detail at the front, neck edge and bottom of the bodice.

The next project is Belle’s second dress made with this combination of fabrics.