CRAFT: Belle Dress

This is possibly my last Disney dress I'm fixing up. (I have a gorgeous Ariel one I could also do yet, but I don't have enough days for her to wear it on the cruise, unless I bump another one out!)

I saved Belle for last because it needed the most work and was the most challenging. Where the others mostly needed lots of hemming and taking in, Belle's dress needed to be pieced together using two different Belle outfits that both needed a lot of work. The main dress I was using had pink stains all over the bottom and the lower middle of the dress. The little tulle rosebuds were squished flat and hanging on by a thread. The tulle was ripped. The dress was way too big. The elastic in the straps had long given up.

My biggest challenge was the skirt. The stains couldn't be removed, and they were blaring. Instead of trying to mask them with putting glitter organza over them (which I had leftover from the Belle fish extender I made months ago, but so didn't look like it went quite right with the dress) I decided instead of hemming the dress, I'd do horizontal pleating and pick ups. The front panel had to be pleated, as the pick ups would let you see the stains still. The rest of the dress has pick ups about every 5 inches around, which I think makes it look more Belle like. There's enough fabric in the dress to make the pick ups look planned instead of awkward with gaping holes between.

I took the roses and fluffed them up over and over, then hot glued them onto the dress (I tried to sew them back on, but they had been glued before so the fabric was too hardened and stiff). I took some of the tulle from the other Belle dress and used it to fix up the tulle sleeves on this dress. I shortened the straps by half. I was going to add more tulle, but I think I'll leave it like this so it doesn't overwhelm the dress.