i bought this dress in UTAHR last week. it has a really great cut, pattern, style, i love everything about it. except that it looks so...librarian-y. not the cute, bespeckled, quirky type. i'm talking about the kind who's always grumpy, covered in cat hair and smells like your garage. behold:

i didn't want to mess with the length and adjusting the collar was more advanced than i'm ready for. so, off come the sleeves:

pictured above, with ninja kitty. i machine stitched the raw edge, then i did a 1.5" hem and hand sewed one of those invisible stitches mom showed me how to do when we were binding my quilt. (brag)

it looks really good. it's hard to tell how good from the picture, but i'm so beyond proud of myself, i think my hands are shaking a little bit as i type.