Making it work

Remember a few weeks ago when I got into the attic of that big mansion with all the really old clothes?
Well there was a garbage pile in the middle of the attic floor, where they had thrown all the tattered "beyond repair" mouse eaten clothes that they figured I wouldn't want. 

I put a clause in my $$ offer that allowed me to rummage through the garbage pile and take whatever I wanted from it.
One of the (many bagfuls of) items I found was this adorable telephone print shirtwaist dress from the 50's-60s.  
This is the after picture:


The dress had about 6 -7 bad mousechew holes in, including this big one on the back.  It was a mess.

But the print was so cute, tiny old-style telephones everywhere
I was determined to save it, even if it meant turning it into a $12 apron.

But the good news was that there was a 3 inch deep hem in the dress; plenty to steal and use for patch repair, and re-hem without shortening the dress.

 Here's the back of the dress after all the repairs, and ta-daa, there's even enough hem fabric leftover to make a matching belt. ( Or patch it a dozen more times in another 50-60 years).