Dress Alterations aka Hijabifying a dress

Hi everyone or anyone!
I've been really busy and neglecting this blog lately, not by choice, but mainly due to my two little boys. I'm so grateful for them but I love my blog and need it to escape the madness, and also have a creative outlet.
Anyway, I wanted to share with you some alterations I made to a dress I wore to a very special person's wedding. When I found out there was going to be a wedding, back in early spring, at first, I was extremely excited. Then I began to worry about what I was going to wear (like any normal girl would). I didn't know what I wanted to wear, but I knew I wanted it to look seamless. I did not want to cover up a dress with a jacket or add sleeves underneath. I wanted a complete look. It came down to about 3 weeks before the wedding when I randomly stumbled upon this dress online. It was a good price, but final sale (sigh). I wasn't sure about the design but I was running out of time so decided to take the risk.

So, I received the dress and the first thing I did was try it on. Of course, it was too tight and way cut way too low. Luckily, I have a good seamstress in town!

This is as much of the dress I can show without showing too much.

The first thing I did was get it hemmed. I had about 6 inches extra off the bottom that I could play around with. I decided to add another V on the neckline with geometric pattern in the middle of the dress, then fill it in with the solid fabric. And this is what I ended up with.

I was pretty happy at this point. However, I was still a bit worried about the sleeves. The fabric wasn't enough to cover that much space. So I went to the fabric store hoping to get lucky. I took the dress with me and kept looking around until finally I found combination that didn't work alone but together were pretty close to perfect! 

After adding the sleeves, I decided I needed more fabric to cover the neckline because I did not want my hijab to hang too low. So I asked my seamstress if she could sew a rectangular piece out of the extra fabric I bought. I used fashion tape to just just keep it in place underneath the dress. I was so happy I ended up wtih that piece! It was such a simple fix to feel comfortable all night and be able to wrap my hijab the way I wanted. Sometimes it's all about the small things in life.

 This is what the finished product looked like!

A better look at the sleeves. Please excuse the picture quality, taken from an iPhone.

Hope you like it! I was really pleased with the way it turned out.