1930s dress restoration, in progress

AlexEliza sent me progress pictures of this old ripped up dress that she was mending, and I’m getting excited.

Doesn’t sometimes a piece of clothing have such character and energy, that eventhough it’s old and tattered, it still seems magical? Even after washing, I couldn’t get all the grease stains out, but it still won out over more plain dresses to get put in the mending pile. Maybe I’m a bit nutty (since Alexa sees it, maybe we both are), but maybe the pastel purple colors and the princess-y design of this piece just latch like a tapeworm into my inner reveries.

This dress’s restoration is still in progress, but here are the pics so far… I’ll post a better pic once it’s all finished!

Here is a close up shot of the shoulder, shot with my cell phone.

A pic of the whole dress, before I bought it

I carefully soaked it in wool-ite and drip-dried in the shade… you can see it way in the back next to a print.

The shoulder is mended! This is just a cell phone pic taken in bad lighting, but hopefully you can tell how much dirt and grease I was able to get out, and how neatly it was sewn and mended by Alexa.