My Adjustment skills put to the test

I have decided to improve on my Nappy cake business (not that it's actually a business yet) but I've been working on increasing and improving my Knitting, sewing, and crocheting skills. Today I'm going to be adjusting a dress that has been handed to me by a friend, she bought it from a charity shop the other day on our visit to Peterborough, but it's too small, and very tight across the bust - so she's handed it to me in the hope that I can either do a simple adjustment to make it wearable for her..............or turn it into a scarf and undercap.

I think the dress is too pretty to be reduced to a scarf, so I'm going to attempt to put in a couple of gussets with a bit of lace, across the front to see if I can work it - of course, I haven't got the funds or capacity to buy matching material, so I'm having to do my usual and bodge it as much as I can. I've found a piece of light tan t'shirt material, and surprisingly, I have some elastic lace  that I bought a while back that matches the material. So I'm experimenting with this.

I don't have anything gold except for a small piece of gold ribbon, there's enough to work with if necessary, but I'm hoping to cope with what I've already got. Let's see how it goes - I'm inviting you to follow my adventure, I feel quite confident, I have in mind what I want to do - but of course, I AM a bodger, so it's anyone's guess how it's actually going to work out, it could be fantastic - or  I could be reduced to a jibbering wreck by the time I've finished.

Here's the dress in it's pure and unadulterated form! Here goes, wish me luck! :D  

Dress is now cut, I've just pinned the panels in to see what it looks like, it's sad I couldn't get the same colour or even a contrasting colour, but I think once it's finished, it might look ok, bearing in mind, most of it's going to be covered by a scarf anyway :p Ok, I'm going to push on and see if the next stage looks any better :)

The next logical stage was to sew the middle panel together, around the cut out section

Front of the panel - I've sewn twice down the lace, once in the middle, once on the edge where the gold piece is - however, I ended up sewing a third time along the outside edge of the lace because it kept on folding in on itself. 

This is the back side of the panel, just so you can see vaguely (very vaguely, sorry it's such a poor photo) what I've done.

Who'd have guessed a roll of Christmas wrapping paper would come in so handy, however, this enabled me to hold the dress at a tension so that I could then pin in the base of the central panel, different, but effective :)

Of course, I can't possible complete a task without some form of war wound, this was the result of me being a little over enthusiastic with the seam ripper!

Nearly there, the dress is wearable, but the neckline looks dreadful, I'm determined to do something about that! In the end I put in four small darts across the top, one either side of the ribbon. 

Tadaaaa! Finished, it may not be the most perfect match, but I think it looks ok, I'm actually really proud of myself seeing as I'm teaching myself techniques as I go along. The dress (so long as you don't look too closely and aren't too critical) is wearable now - which is more so than it was this morning.