The long black dress

I bought this long black eyelet dress at goodwill. 

Why? Because i liked it (I LOVE lace and eyelet), but mostly because I wanted a quick, fun, and somewhat easy project. I put my sewing projects mostly on hold in an attempt to force myself to get my sewing room finished quickly. The sewing room was coming along rather slowly though, and I needed a break! So I decided to get this dress and refashion it.
I brought the dress home and tried it on. It was a little tight. I could get it on (barely), but there was no way to put it on my dress form. In order to make the changes I wanted to make I had to have the dress on the dress form. So, the first thing I had to do was let the dress out some.
Now this dress doesn't have a zipper, just an elastic panel in the center back.

 I decided the best way to let the dress out would be to add stretchy panels to the side back as well. So I cut out the original side back panels,

 and replaced them with new panels made from an old black stretchy t-shirt.

 The new panels aren't as pretty as the eyelet ones were but they make the dress much more comfortable!

The dress then fit on my dress form so the fun part could begin!

To go along with this dress I got some black lace to make straps out of. So the first thing to do once the dress was on the form was drape the lace over the top.

I then started pinning the lace where I wanted it and cutting off the excess. It didn't take me long to get the general look of the lace straps figured out. 

I pinned everything in place then (very carefully)  took it off the dress form to sew. I chose to hand sew the lace to the dress for two reasons. First, because it looks nicer to have nearly invisible hand stitches holding the lace on, than it does to have a line of very visible machine stitches along the top of the dress. Second, by hand sewing this I could bring it with me to work, to sew during my breaks. This way I wasn't using my time at home (when I should be working on my sewing room) to sew.

So, i got all the lace sewn on. The dress then appeared to be done. It fit me well and had pretty lace straps, the two things I wanted. There was one more thing, however, that I wanted to add, pockets! I love having pockets in my dresses! 

So, using a seam ripper I opened up the side seams of the dress where I wanted the pockets to be. I made a couple of pockets from some black fabric I had in my stash.

And then sewed them in! Now my long black dress is done!

It's very lightweight and comfortable! As you can see I changed the front straps some from the original design.

I really, really like the look of the lace straps!

The back of the dress may be the prettiest part of the dress due to the lace!

This was a very fun, easy project. Now back to fixing up my sewing room and getting ready to go to Guatemala!