The Clothes Alteration does save you money but it also gives you more clothing options! Knowing how to alter clothes is important for every sewer.
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Clothes Alteration Can Make Dress Perfectly Fit
1. Neckline
Altering necklines or collars can be confusing due to the different fabrics and stitches used, but practice makes perfect. Nobody wants an unintended loose neckline! Common tricks to alter a big neckline include using the gathering technique, binding, or correcting the garment from the shoulder.
2. Armholes
Loose armholes can make or break clothing which can also accidentally break your arms. It could also create undesirable creases across the chest.
Perfect armholes will give you the confidence to let loose and enjoy! So how to do it?
There are three common ways to fix loose armholes:
- First, add a dart from the bust apex of the dress by pinching the fold on the wrong side of the fabric, then sew the fold.
- Second, add a band or binding by easing any extra fabric into the armhole.
- Third, add decorative lingerie elastic and sew it around the armhole.
3. Long Sleeves
Even if loose sleeves seem to be in right now with the recent cold season, it could also be quite inconvenient. A great long-sleeved dress I didn’t buy comes to mind because it’s too long and loose for me.
Avoid that situation by learning how to alter your own! The most common trick to refer to loose sleeves is to stitch in one continuous line from the armhole up to the opening of the sleeves.
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4. Bustline
If the dress is not perfect for our bustline, this is awkward and can make us uncomfortable.
Another trick to alter the bustline is to sew Velcro inside your dress. Sew a strip of Velcro to the sides of the dress, under your arms. Use the soft and curved edge in case it rubs against your skin.
5. Pant Waist
Constantly pulling on your pants can be annoying and embarrassing. Save yourself from the inconvenience and embarrassment by learning how to alter your too-big pants and jeans!
To alter the waistline, all you need is to refer it from the center back of the pants. You need to remove the belt loop first, then measure how much fabric you need to take out.
Use pins to mark the point you want to refer to, then start sewing from the mark.
Tip: You can also use Velcro to alter the Pants' Waist.
6. Pant Legs
Some people prefer their pants to be loose while others don’t. I belong to the last group.
The formal and sophisticated look and snug pant legs will get you far. The number one hack to alter a baggy pair of pants is to get perfect fit jeans and use them as a guide.
Lay the fitting pants on top of the baggy jeans, then trace.
Tip: Make sure you line up the crotches of the jeans outside its leg seams before tracing them.
Want to know how to slim down a shirt? Check out this video by Will Beauty:
Learning how to alter your clothes will give a lot of advantages to your daily life! It certainly widens your choices. In Clothes Alteration, you can buy a slightly large but unique dress you like and alter it according to your fit! Then you can wear new clothes without spending too much.
Did this article help you? Which one do you think you'll be using soon? Let us know in the comments section below!
There is a LOT more to alterations then you have indicated! This is the field I have worked in for over 50 years. I retired eight years ago as a tailor and although some of your tips were good, there is a lot more to doing all that you covered. Pants, both men’s and women’s should always be altered from the back with a few exceptions. Bands on women’s slacks should be removed and moved over if the fabric is light and other wise, the band should be taken in, then the back seam and then put back together. To take the bag out of pants, only the inseam is touched and then normally only the back seam.
I have searchng for a a long ng while ways to use darts in alterating good thrift store finds. This did seam to be missing pics for a beginner. For one that already knows the basics, may have been enough information.
I’m gonna try this on my pants!! I know how to sew!! As for Violetmoon. You have been altering for 50 years, what your saying takes it to a whole new level that people wouldn’t even bother to try and do!!This article is enough to believe I can do this!!
My issues are usually shirts too big in the waist (so they look tent-like when left out or have lots of weird gathers when tucked in) or pants with extra baggy material under the butt/at the tops of the thighs (or sometimes with hips too wide because they assume hip measurement = wide hips. My butt sticks OUT in back, hence my hip measurement and I need *rise*, but my hips are not WIDE). And sometimes tops that fit fine everywhere except that someone was very optimistic about bust size and it’s just too big. It would be nice to learn how to do these alterations as well.
Awesome thanks for the info!
I have a problem with pants being too long in the stride/crotch area. If I fold over from waistband, they fit well. However, with side pockets, that won’t work. I’ve tried petite, but then the pants are too short.
I have a long A line sleeves dress that is a size too large. Can I just take up the slack at the top the shoulders?
hi can I use your article as reference?
im a young man 66 years old that would like to learn to alter my own clothes . my jeans are baggy at the legs and big at the waist
It’s great that you pointed out how clothes alteration would not only save you money but also give you more clothing options. I’ve lost quite a lot of weight over the past two years, so now my clothes don’t fit me anymore. It would be a waste to not use them anymore, so I am thinking of having my clothes altered by a clothing sewing shop.