A few months ago, I received a text message from a make up artist that I worked with in the past (for this shoot), asking for help. She bought a wedding dress online but the color was not the color she was expecting. The dress was made in pure white polyester satin and organza, and it did not fit well with her skin color. This strapless sweet heart neckline dress came with an organza long sleeve top which she did not like either. She wanted the color to be more of an off-white and ivory shade. So she attempted to dye the dress with coffee; however, the color did not becaus the dress fabric was synthetic.
Here is the before and after picture. I am not sure if I was able to capture the color correctly in pictures, but the one on the left is white and the one on the right is the same dress after the modification, which is off-white.
My plan was to take apart the top layers of the dress, and make new layers in off white satin, lace and chiffon using the patterns of the old wedding dress.
Here is the picture of the dress after the dissection.
The dress bodice with off white satin and lace layers added.
Here is the completed dress!
If your wedding dress color is not what you like, you can make the top layer based on the original dress. It is much easier and quicker than making a dress from scratch.





Winter is my least favorite season. Not only do I hate being cold, but also fashion wise, I get sick of multiple layers. Usually I end up wearing jeans and a Uniqlo sweater. So boring! But…..I had a chance to get to Nippori last weekend and that gave me some sewjo to make myself something fun to wear. After going through piles of knits on the second floor of Tomato fabric store, I ended up with this beige knit. It is medium to thick knit made out of 80% of rayon. The rest of the fabric content is a mixture of polyester and polyurethane, so the knit does not go too stretchy after some washes. The wrong side of the fabric is flannelized to keep it warm and it feels good against the skin.
The pattern was from a store bought dress I had. I did not do anything special except for lengthening the sleeves. I sewed the front neckline with an elastic so that the neckline would not get stretched. The whole thing is serged and the hem was done by hand. This way the hem sewing line is invisible. Sewing was simple and in total it took less than two hours to make.

I’m planning on wearing with cardigan, long boots (from Zara) and plaid scarf for now. Once the weather warms up, I want to pair it with white sneakers and leather jacket. 













