Lengthen a Dress with Color Blocking

I bought what I thought was the perfect summer dress online last year.  Loved it.  Wore it, washed it (cold water and drip dry) and it shrunk up way above my knees!  Grrrr!  Sadly, my way-too-short dress hung in the closet for the rest of the summer.

Last week I realized I had some raspberry colored gingham that perfectly coordinated with the dress and set to work color blocking to lengthen the dress.

 

First I slipped on the dress and measured where I wanted the first band of gingham, marked it and then cut the dress:

 

 

Using the strip I'd cut from the bottom of the dress, I used it as a guide for cutting my first band of gingham:

 

 

Then I pinned the gingham strip to the cut band of the dress:

 

 

And sewed the two pieces together so that it looked like this:

 

 

I repeated the process with a second, thinner band of gingham before sewing the new, gingham, two-banded piece to the top (bodice) of the dress.  I finished it all off with bias tape along the hem line ~ this helped me keep more length and it's easier than sewing a hem.

 

 

Now it is the perfect summer dress!