Since my amazing seamstress sister lives far away and I did not inherit the sewing gene, I took Emma's dress to the dry cleaners to see about getting it altered. After a nice discount, the dress cost just under $51.00. Awesome! Unfortunately, it's a little long on Emma. It needed to be hemmed and the shoulder straps needed to be shortened.
The dry cleaner told me - in a form of English that was hard to understand - that she would charge $60. I was certain that I must have misunderstood her. So, I repeated...$60? She nodded yes. That's just insane.
I came home and took out the stitching in the shoulders. It took me about 20 minutes to get the stitching out. I re-stitched one of the shoulder straps and it didn't look any different than it did before. I was very excited with the outcome. The second shoulder was just as easy. Woo hoo!
Now, I just need to figure out how to hem it!