Alterations for Naia

I finished up Naia's costume alterations this week. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out considering this is the first time I've ever altered a costume for someone other than myself. Naia is a big fan of purple and found her dream costume at The Bellydance Shop. Unfortunately, the bra was too small and made weird dents into her chest and the skirt was about 4 1/2inches too short (Naia is 6 feet tall.) She had resigned to sell it, brand new/never worn, when I suggested we try to alter it.

Naia managed to find glittery spandex in the perfect shade of purple to match the skirt. I used scotch tape to secure the bead work along the bottom of the skirt and then cut a 5" strip across the bottom. I made a matching strip from the glitter fabric and then serged it all together with my new machine. The seams are a little ripply because I had to surge the seams twice due to a screw up on my part but they create a wave in the skirt bottom. Once serged together, I stitched down all of the loose/cut bead work and added a new line of trim on the glitter strip to match the rest of the skirt.

My short torso standing next to Naia's skirt. I'm only 5'3".

 Inside view of bra extension on left with wire and new lining on right. You can see the original cup at the bottom of this post.

All of the bra padding was ripped out and then bra extensions where added made from layers of felt and interfacing covered with glitter fabric and wired for support. Then I added a new lining to fit the new cup size. Naia added grosgrain ribbon to the under side of the halter straps to keep them from stretching and provide more support.

 I really like the mix of crystal and lavender strands of rhinestones on the original design.

Dream costume saved! I hope to see it in action next week. =)

~N