Help! We Have a Figure Skating Dress Disaster on our Hands!

From Canadian reader Mel:

I have had a dress disaster. I’m from England and we’ve been living in Canada for the past two years. Some things are called differently, particularly it seems in sewing/fabrics…

Anyway, I went in to the costume fabric store and this assistant picked out the dress and the “Tulle,” as you can see. My daughter loved her dress and loved the “Tulle.” (Apparently it’s not Tulle, according to my friends on the bench, even though the lady in the shop said it was Tulle. I always thought Tulle was stiffer, like a tutu (I did ballet as a child).

My daughter loves/d her dress, yesterday was simulations and I was in the music box volunteering. She sat on the bench and swiveled to sit, and either the bench or the swiveling made holes in the “Tulle;” not big holes, and it’s not torn-torn… it just looks like a cat had put its claws in and pulled a bit.

The photos were before the disaster…. And while my five-year-old was still smiling, she’s been in tears since… the poor love.

I tried spraying and ironing it out and that didn’t work…. I’m so tempted to go and get some more fabric for the underskirt/Tulle replacement. Unpick the waist seam/panties join, change the underskirt material and then re-attach it all.

She’s skating this weekend and next weekend for the same half ice programme. It’s her first competition and I wanted her to feel confident and love her dress not feel bad wearing it.

Do you think I should go and replace the skirt and what sheer fabric do I need?

Thank you so much,

Mel

Well, Mel, I’m with you: I always thought that Tulle was that stiff netting fabric, too. Just like you had said, I thought it was for ballet tutus. I can’t imagine the fabric that the woman sold you.

In any case, let’s discuss your options:

Rip out that skirt and sew on a new underskirt. This is not a bad choice. Ripping out the skirt isn’t very hard, cutting a new underskirt isn’t that bad, and sewing it all together isn’t a huge chore. I’d go with stretchy athletic mesh or perhaps a stretchy glissenette, if you can’t find athletic mesh.
Get out the scissors. True confession time here, Mel. I’m lazy. I really hate re-doing anything I have already sewn. I go great lengths to never hand sew anything and I try very hard not to rip out stitches. Of course, sometimes it’s inevitable. In this case, it’s not. I would very, very carefully take my sharp little snips and cut the underskirt off of the dress, between the overskirt and the leotard. Make sure you’re doing this while making very sure not to nick the overskirt with those sharp snips. To make up for the lack of an underskirt, I would add more crystals, because adding crystals is fun. Ripping out stitches, cutting a new skirt, and sewing it all back together is a lot like work. It’s not hard work and it’s not time consuming; however, when you want to take that dress and throw it as far as you can while screaming stress-relieving curse words at the top of your lungs, the scissors option seems mighty good.

Good luck, Mel! Keep us posted about what you decide to do with that skirt. You have other options, too, as I’m sure the readers will tell you about!

What would you do if you were Mel? Would you replace the underskirt or shut the sewing room door and start cutting that Tulle off the dress? What other options does Mel have? If she does decide to replace the underskirt, what fabric should she use? Please leave your suggestions in the comments!

Do you have a question for Ice Mom or a doozy for the Advisory Board? I have a question for this week Friday, but nothing for the month of December. Send me your dilemma and I’ll forward it to the wise people on the Advisory Board. If you have a suggestion for a blog post, I’d love to hear from you, too! If you know where my really sharp pair of orange snips are, could you please return them to my sewing room? No questions asked. Thanks. E-mail me at IceMom.Diane@gmail.com

Coming up on Thursday and Friday: Figure skating holiday gift ideas for skaters and coaches!

Photo credits:
Rainbow Phoenix Tutu free Creative Commons: Pink Sherbet Photography / D. Sharon Pruitt on Flickr.com Creative Commons
dress with tulle: reader Mel
dress blur: reader Mel
Scissors (multicolored): Rhian vK / Rhian on Flickr.com Creative Commons

Becky

I think you can just cut out the underskirt. The over skirt is long enough. I agree with Ice Mom if you do decide to replace it you need to look or glissenette or mesh, stay way from chiffon because it has a tendancy to snag and pull too.
Good Luck!
Becky
Anonymous

I agree that cutting it out and not re-sewing everything together sounds like the better option (especially if it is needed by the weekend). However, if you really want the underskirt you could cut another one (out of fabric suggested by icemom) and then pin it back under the top skirt. Then try to topstitch it in place as close as possible to the skirt seam. As the dress is for a little girl, you can probably use a slighlty long-ish straight stitch (I know, I know, heresy! – but I have seen it done, by a great seamstress I might add) around the skirt area. If you are really careful and the skirt material behaves then the stitching should just look like part of the skirt seam and when she is skating nobody will notice. You have to be careful on the cutting out of the old skirt and sewing in of the new one, but you save time on the not ripping seams and dealing with sewing all of the pieces back together.
Kmostoway

Cute dress! You could try cutting out the underskirt and sewing on some mesh or glissenette to the bottom of the hem. I did this with one of my daughter’s dresses. She still had to be careful where she sat, though, as it would tend to catch on things.
Anonymous Skater

I think I’m too late to help here, but if we’re just talking something similar to “cat claw holes”, how about taking some clear thread (think: very fine fishing line) and loosely hand sewing the gaps. Or else take a trick from panythose runs and put some clear nail polish over them so they don’t spread. If they are really that small, the judges won’t notice from the stands.
http://icemom.net/2010/12/figure-skating-sewing-question-round-up-2.html Figure Skating Sewing Question Round-Up | Ice Mom.net

[...] from reader Mel, who had the dress disaster: This is what I did… I drove into town and went back to the fabric/costume shop and they (no [...]