Spring Dress: Before and After

I have a darling friend with 4 darling daughters and I happened to be at her house one day when she was organizing little girl clothes. Her youngest is slightly older than my girl but after 3 girls she was sick of some really cute stuff. Plus, when she wasn't looking I was able to snag some cute pieces out of the keep pile - like this little number:

I said it would be cute as a dress, knowing full well that I wouldn't have the gumption to cut into such a cute, expensive outfit. But my friend agreed. Said it was too "Aladdiny" and she wants it back if I change it into a dress. What more encouragement did I need that to know that if I went to the trouble, I would lose the dress?

So I cut off the legs, and spent a whole evening picking out little stitches so I could have the whole length of the band around the legs. I ironed, stitched and hemmed and finally had a darling band of flowers then polka dots at the bottom that looked positively ridiculous.
So I spent more time with my trusty seam ripper (which I lost 3 times during this project and sent my husband to the fabric department on his next trip to the store to buy me 3 more) and started on round two which was going to be a simple hem with a blue ribbon band on the underside. But I thought it looked cuter with the blue ribbon showing:
Cute. But it still didn't speak to me. After this much wasted work, it ought to sing so we headed toward round 3. A pleated green ribbon.

Ah! That's better. Don't forget the bow to match (good thing I make my own since this bow matches ONLY this dress. This obsession would break the bank if I had to pay someone else to feed it):

*And I was just kidding. I would never steal something I plan to alter from a friend who reads my blog and loves before and after pictures. Thanks for the outfit! I'll return it when you have another girl.