What a difference sleeves make

This year our oldest daughter started HS and is playing in the orchestra. Although I am thrilled that they are required to dress up formally, we were not especially thrilled with the choice of dress we had to buy. Out of all these pretty modest dresses and options, the previous director picked this one--a sleeveless number?! for orchestra? Really?!

I don't know about any of you but I find sleeveless to be a bit distractive for orchestra. Who wants to see white, possibly flabbly arms, as you're listening to great music? And besides that we live in the upper midwest for crying out loud. We currently have lots of snow on the ground that is here to stay and we've been in the teens/single digit temps already and probably will stay there thru February. Sleeveless, really?! However, the main reason we don't love this dress is for our standards, sleeveless is immodest.

L. and her best friend C. both approached their director about adding sleeves to the dress, or wearing something else with it and thankfully he didn't have any problems with it--just so long as it was black. And interestingly enough another girl in their orchestra had already approached him with the same concern. So at least 3 girls were uncomfortable enough with the dress choice to talk to him about it. YES!

Their first concert is this Thursday and the package of additional fabric from the dress company to make sleeves will not be here in time, but I found a piece at Jo-Ann's that will work close enough until then. We are changing the dress to have sleeves more like this one. Below is our half & half look....before and after.

You can't really tell a difference on the fabric from a distance--so we should be good for this first concert. L. and C. are so much happier and comfortable with their sleeved dresses.

**Thanks Mr. Shogren for being so understanding and not making a fuss about the girls wanting to add sleeves to their dresses. (not so sure the previous director would've been as agreeable) You've been great!

**And a big thanks to Frederica at Tuxedo Wholesalers for being so accomodating and pleasant to work with. We look forward to receiving our extra fabric next week and making the sleeves permanent on these otherwise really pretty dresses.