Leafy Greens, Peter Pan, and the Case of the Magically Expanding Dress

Wow, I do believe in magic, I do, I do!  At a vintage fair last spring, I had bought an amazing 1930s dress; it had the most heartbreakingly beautiful leaf pattern on it and the most darling green trim with self ties at the neck.  Despite my love for this garment, when I took it home and tried it on, I found it far too tight in the bust, too short in length, and generally just not quite the right fit.  As some of you will recall, I put it up in my Etsy shop for a long while.  Then, as fall was coming nearer, I pulled it out of storage with the aim of willing this dress to fit me once and for all.  For some reason, when I put the dress on this second time, it seemed to fit a little better than it had before, perhaps because the crepe had been washed by the seller and was now starting to relax a bit, so I immediately pulled it out of the shop and hoarded it, though I still knew I would need a more powerful corselette or a serious bust flattening device if I was to wear it out and about for more than an hour or two.  Well, as I was looking through my closet in an effort to find something to wear this evening, I pulled this dress out once again.  I ended up discovering that the dress had been clumsily taken in at some point in its history, but the way the alterations had been done, the seamstress had simply stitched a wider seam allowance in the bust, waist, and hips, without actually trimming off any of the fabric and without ever removing the original stitching along the seams. As a result, after doing some stitch ripping for about a half hour, the dress is "magically" my exact size and ready to wear without restricting breathing or movement! I don't even need any Bridget Jones-esque giant "stomach holding in" knickers, etc.  My green "leaf" hat from Dear Golden not only matches the motif of the leaf pattern of the dress (and its color vaguely coordinates with that of the frock's palette), but it makes me feel a little like Peter Pan or Jack-er-Jill of the Magic Beanstock story, so thought I'd add it to the look. Magic!