Altering a Wedding dress--Adding Shoulders and Sleeves to Strapless Wedding Dress

In my home sewing business, I often alter wedding dresses, sometimes taking a strapless wedding dress and making it modest by adding shoulders and sleeves.  **Please note that I have an updated post that gives much more detail to adding sleeves to a strapless dress.**  Here are some examples:



When the client comes, they try on the dress and tell me what their needs are.  I measure their full bust, high bust, back shoulder width, and arm circumference.  I make markings where they would like the shoulders to come down to the neckline.  Then after I have made the muslin shell, I hand baste it to the dress and have the client come for a fitting.

Once everything has been checked and marked, I use the muslin shell as a pattern to cut out the bridal fabric.

Here is the back panel for a corset back.  I added extra length at the top, giving extra support with boning and interfacing.

The original dress neckline was too low so I added shaped fabric strips to the sweetheart neckline.

 Unpick the lining from the neckline.  I like to insert the shoulders in between the layers.



I drew a sketch of the original sweetheart neckline so that I can duplicate the shape when I raise the neckline.



 Here are the shaped taffeta neckline pieces sewn into place.

Here is what it looks like on the inside.










After making the tulip sleeve pattern, I tucked the taffeta fabric to match the design on the rest of the dress.

Now the sleeves are hand basted to the finished shoulders.

After machine stitching the sleeves to the shoulders, I trim the seam allowance and wrap raw edges with bias strips to finish it off professionally.  I use a seam ripper to help guide and hold the bias strips.

Now one more pin fit before permanently sewing the top to the rest of the dress.

Here I added beading on the front and back shoulders and the tulip sleeves so that it matched the rest of the dress.

 

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This is a dress I altered for my friend Kriss.  It was also strapless.  I added the shoulders and sleeves.  The dress was satin with a tulle overlay.  I added tulle to the sleeves.  Since the dress was full of tucking in the skirt, I did the same technique with the sleeves, tucking up some of the fabric and added beads on top.  I unpicked some of the lace and beaded appliques from the back train to add to the sleeves and shoulder fronts.









The back closure is a corset so I added length in the back panel and also added loops and extended the tie.



Kriss looks beautiful!  She was gracious enough to share some of her wedding photos.





They were married in the Rexburg LDS Temple for time and eternity.
What a happy couple.

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This next dress is vintage and the client found it online for $50.  It was too large on her.  I took in the sides and sleeves, took the sleeves off and lined them for modesty, brought in the shoulders, and added an insert in the neckline. 



Here is what the back looks like.

Since there was a lot of lace detail on the dress back, I was able to remove some lace appliques to attach on the front neckline.

Back train of the dress.

The neckline was too low so I added a center lace applique and lined the back.

Here is a closeup of the "V" neckline filled in.



Here is what the inside of the front neckline looks like.



Here are the sleeves after lining them.

What a beautiful and happy bride.

A closeup of the new shoulders and modest neckline.

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This next dress was for Molly when she won the Jr. Miss Pageant.  She bought this yellow satin two piece gown with a full skirt and very tight cap sleeves.  Because she performed on the violin for her talent, she needed the sleeves changed to petal sleeves so that she could freely move her arms.  Since the skirt was very full, I "borrowed" some fabric slices from the back seam of her skirt to make new sleeves.  The sleeves were beaded so I had to unpick most of the beads and sew them back on when I remade the sleeves into petal sleeves.

 

Details of the beading at the neckline.

Here are some closeups of the new sleeves with the added beading to match the rest of the bodice.  The petal sleeves have been totally lined.  A petal sleeve allows for much movement.

These cap sleeves are half cap, so the armscye is lined at the bottom, and then the seam allowance has seam binding in the cap seamline to finish off the raw edges.

OOPS!  I don't know how to get this picture to rotate.  Sorry.

May 6, 2020

Here are pictures of the most recent wedding gown I have altered.  The client brought me a beautiful strapless lace dress that she had purchased.  The clerk selling her the dress assured her that it could be altered by adding lace and making sleeves.  When she brought it to me I told her that I did not think it would look good to do a fill in because it would be obvious.  Instead, I removed the strapless bodice and added a whole new bodice, complete with long sleeves.  She had purchased extra lace and satin so we were ready to go!

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