A little bit of lace, a moth-y refashion!

I have had this lovely angora dress in my wardrobe for years.  However a couple of years ago I lived in a house with a serious moth problem.  I managed to get rid of the moths when I moved out but I was left with some very upsetting holes in my beautiful dress which made it more or less unwearable :(

However, in a ruthless wardrobe cull earlier in the year I decided this dress either had to be refashioned or go into the recycling (luckily I still desperately wanted to keep more or less as it was or it could have become one of the many pairs of cosy mittens I have made so far this year). I started by darning the moth holes but some of them were really big and even if you are better at darning than I am, those big darned patches are never going to look that attractive so I needed something else to make this dress fabulous again.

I found 3m of off-white, stretch lace trim in my local fabric shop for 60p!  I couldn't believe it, this was exactly what I needed.  Along with some chunky vintage buttons I had found in a charity shop for 50p, I had all I needed to make my dress a thing of beauty again.

There are a few holes that are not actually covered by the lace, particularly in the back but I took care over the darning and I hope they're not too obvious.  Can you spot them?

I hand stitched all the lace so it was a bit of a labour of love this refashion but I have worn it out a number of times now and always get lots of compliments on it.  I love it and to be honest it is much more me now, I don't often wear plain, simple clothes (although there are those who argue that I should) and the trim makes this dress into something that is much more my style while still leaving me with a dress that is smart and elegant (or at least I think so), not bad for £1.10!

Happy new year everyone!  I hope everyone has the new year festivities (or not) planned for this evening and that 2014 is a wonderful year for you all.