Making a baby dress fit for a leeeetle bit longer!

As our weather is finally starting to warm up a bit, I've started pulling Little Sister's summer clothes out of the closet.  The dress I pulled out today is one I was so excited to find in the consignment shop (I got it in trade).  It's a size 18 month, and she's 14 months old.  She's never worn it before.  So, I bet you can guess where this is going....it's too small!  Wahhhh!

Luckily, this dress buttons up the front, so I had an idea.  After squeezing her into it for the morning, I took it with me when she went down for her nap to see if I could fix it up. I just couldn't bear only getting one wear out of it!

Cute, right?

So, first I made a tube out of leftover denim from the jeans I tried to recycle for The boy.  Side note--every time I make one of these tubes, I have flashbacks to all of the scrunchies I made in the '80's.  My early craft heritage!  I chose the denim because it was a similar weight to the rest of the dress, and the fabric would blend.  If all went according to plan, the new fabric wouldn't really show, so I didn't need an exact match.  I made the tube the same length as the placket of the dress, and once it was right-side-out, I ironed it flat and ironed the ends in.

Here's the tube, once I'd turned and ironed it.

Another note--I always forget what a pain in the butt it is to turn these tubes inside out, especially when they are skinny.  That took up such a chunk of the time involved in this project!  I've seen some sort of tube-turner thingy--has anybody used one?  Do they work?  Are they expensive?  Are they worth it?  (edited to add--I just looked these babies up on Amazon, and whoa! $60?  I'll suffer with a screwdriver or knitting needle!)  These are the thoughts that go through my head while turning the tube.  Well, that, and the scrunchie memories.

Soooo, back to my dress modification, I then took the buttons off of the dress and pinned the flattened tube to the edge of the button placket so that about 1/2 inch stuck out.  I stitched it down along the edge of the original placket, and on the back side I stitched along the edge of the added strip.

From the back side--the second seam is the one that lines up with the front edge of the original dress.

Extra strip, all added in.

The added strip is a bit shorter than the original dress, top and bottom.
It doesn't stick out that way.

All I had left to do was reattach the buttons, now about 3/4 of an inch further over than they used to be!  Granted, the row of buttons is no longer perfectly centered, but I don't really care.

Another benefit of this alteration is that it will be easy to reverse it if I want to pass this dress on or resell it at a consignment shop.

All done!

I don't have any "before" pics of Little Sister in the snug dress, but I'm sure you're familiar with the look of an oxford shirt buttoned over your lady humps?  Yeah.  That's how the buttons were pulling on my poor little girl.  So here she is now!

A dress that fits!