Trimming it up for May Day

Three years ago, I made this dress, from McCall's M7317 and a beautiful striped floral swiss dot cotton.

It turned out wonderfully summery and fun to wear, but I only got to wear it twice. The second time I wore it, I managed to drip something on the bodice and stain it. White clothing and I are not the best mixture. I tried to get the stain out and failed.

Stain removal not working for me, I decided I could just add some trim or an applique to cover the stain. I pulled out a few different options, pinned them to the dress, and wasn't satisfied with a single one. Nothing looked quite right. So, I threw the dress on a pile in my sewing room and there it has remained for the past three years - in my sewing room, moved from pile to pile. Too pretty to get rid of, but too stained to wear.

Last week, after I'd been invited to a May party, the dress caught my eye on its pile in the corner of the sewing room. Suddenly, I knew exactly how to fix it! Ric-Rac! 

In my stash I found the perfect blue-green ric-rac to match the blue on the dress fabric, I carefully positioned it to hide the stain - and it actually looked good! I added some red ric-rac and white lace for good measure then proceeded to sew the new trimmings to the dress.

It worked! The trim hid the stain without looking like too much of an afterthought tacked on the dress. I didn't have enough of the blue ric-rac to go all around the neckline of the faux wrap bodice, so I only applied the blue and the lace to the stained side of the bodice, while the red wraps all the way around.

As the dress already featured an asymmetric skirt, the asymmetric bodice trim works beautifully with the overall design.

As aforementioned, I was invited to a May party last Saturday, and my newly decorated white dress seemed like just the springy garment to wear to such a gathering. 

So wear it I did! Paired with a thin brown belt, my brown dress boots, and an 18th century-ish straw bergere hat to protect my face from the sun. (It was highly recommended all party guests come wearing hats on this fine, sunny, spring day)

We ate. We drank. We chatted. We enjoyed the beautiful spring day. We attempted to dance around a Maypole.

By the end of the afternoon, after some trial and error, we had somehow managed to weave the ribbons around the Maypole.

And we all left with a small flower to plant at home.

 I enjoyed the afternoon with my friends - and now I can enjoy wearing my mostly white, asymmetric swiss dot dress once more!