What to Wear? Why, something new, of course!

Well, my dilema of what to wear to the awards banquet was resolved because a package was delivered to my house Saturday afternoon containing the bargain dress I had purchased online from ColdWater Creek earlier in the week.

It was a lovely shade of purple, an embroidered and beaded jacket, with 3/4 length sleeves, loop button closures on the front of the jacket. Underneath was a very beautiful plain shantung purple sheath dress.

I tried it on, and the dress sort of fit, but the jacketfit very nicely. The dress was too long, gapped under the arms, and definitely needed some alterations. I played with ideas for how to alter it, and it seemed that pulling up the skirt and tucking it under a pleat across the middle to make it look like a 2 piece dress. This might be the way to go to do a quick alteration.

Now, I've altered a lot of costumes lately, and this is what I would do to a costume. So, I bravely forged ahead, measured TWICE and cut once, and cut the dress in two pieces for a top and a bottom. I was a little bit scared of this move, but I liked the jacket so much by itself, and it would go with black underneath, so I figured I didn't have that much to lose.

In about an hour, I had a nice three piece outfit instead of a two piece outfit. And it fit well and looked nice. I got plenty of compliments on the outfit while I was at the banquet.

The only modifications I need to make is to tighten the elastic at the waist, because it slipped down in the back as I sat around listening to the awards. If I had had more time, I would have made a fitted skirt out of it, sewing in darts and inserting a zipper. With the loose elastic, I had to make sure I wasn't showing anything untoward as I got up to give my presentation.

As I was ironing it in the final finishing, I had a flashback to the time I ironed my actress's jacket (made of the same fabric as my outfit) and burned a hole in it! I kept checking the iron's setting to make sure it wasn't too hot. A hole in the fabric would have been difficult to repair! Luckily, that didn't happen to me, the fates of the steam iron were with me on this day!

So my dilema has been solved, and now I will be looking for another special event to go to in order to wear my new three piece purple outfit.