Aftermarket Alterations in my 60s

Even the backpack needs alterations

My sewing journey began with making my doll's clothes with remnants from the table at Pacific Iron as a 7 year old. My first work on human clothes was hemming pants. I am 5'2" and all pants are too long.

I did some garment sewing in elementary and middle school (I sewed my first pants suit for 5th grade when they let us wear pants to school, I made a couple A-line dresses: all of this from double knit polyester)

There has been more, but in-between all those projects has been a lot of altering. Letting it out, taking it in, making it longer, so much making it shorter.

Lately I have been rehemming all my tshirts so they can either hang out and look acceptable to me, or tuck in and not have an extra roll around my extra roll.

Oh, and I have gotten bigger, for emotional and old lady issues.

The sewing activities that fascinate me now are remodels. I enjoy going back into old work and finding ways to make it more wearable. Hemming the tshirts has been one activity, moving tags from the itchy places is another. Replacing zippers in coats (why was I installing 28 inch zippers when a 24 was reachable for my stubby little arms?). I still put pockets into things that didn't start out with pockets, but I have redone pockets in items to reflect the knowledge I have now about how to hang a pocket, or to totally change out an altered pocket that hasn't aged well.

Stitching down loose facing in shirt that has made it not as easy to grab and wear.  There's been a lot of this in my closet, so much I haven't bothered to photograph it. The shirt will still need a press, but it won't need a hour of pressing.

All of these take a lot more time and unpicking than they used to. Sometimes it's helpful that I saved fabric leftovers so that I can use new pieces rather than trying to find extra fabric in the garment itself. One of my projects for last summer was going to be making the wooden ruler sundress fit me again. I do have extra pieces, all cut into a long role of bias tape. I just lost heart.

I have not tossed it out though.

Choir Dress Hem Mystery

Another batch of choir clothes came in last week.Some of the black hems failed. Some did not. Some failed in epic fashion.

None of the blue skirts failed.

The front hems failed. The back hems did not. And not all of them. "A lot of them", which is not a useful damage report. They were all mended by the choir assistant director.

There is more stretch potential on the front skirt than the split piece back.

So this is where we left off last week.

The difference between the black and blue hems is functionally: the black had lace seam tape, the blue did not. The blue ended up with a slight zig zag stitch. The black had a straight stitch

(just thinking ahead on pulling out the hems next year). 

The one hem fail I got to see had broken in the front (the rest had been mended).

I used the same Gutterman thread for spool and bobbin.
I'm glad I took notes.

The bobbin thread on the outside hem is snapped. It's pretty frayed.

I'm going to wager that in pulling on the dress over the head, the front skirt panel gets grabbed and stretched, and because it's wider it has more elasticity in it. So you could achieve a larger failure rate and a large fail.

Live and learn. Girls gotta get dressed.

I've done the new hem (needed to be let down - girls grow a lot around this age) and done with a zig zag. I think it looks dodgy, but functional is important.

January Alterations

Got some stuff to change.

A hem for the spouse in those brown pants. The Marimekko sleeveless dress. The striped linen jumpsuit for round two. 

And the black pants with the waistband.

So here's the deal: the client is a shapely woman whose waist/hip ratio has made the side seams pop open at the waist band when she pulls them on.

And yes, they have a fly of adequate length. She's just got all that going on.

 So we're going to put some elastic in the sides to add that bit of 'give'

Just enough. I'm a little concerned that these 'vents' are going to pinch and bite, so she's trying them out. We'll see if this works or not.

The jumpsuit is not pictured. It was a lot of unpicking.

And sewing. And unpicking.

It was similar to this Simplicity model and needed better elastic to hold the weight of the bottom. 

 So it needed a bigger channel, which was originally a wide flat felled seam. Which I couldn't seem to figure out how to widen. There's kind of an explanation in the instructions for this Simplicity pattern, but I'm putting myself to sleep thinking about it. I added more fabric to make a bigger channel and then put in wider nonroll elastic. 

Of course I had to edit their instructions to make them make more sense to me. I'm seeing this pattern coming back to haunt me shortly, so why not take a moment and solve the dilemma.

The Marimekko x Uniqlo a line dress became a tunic. 

I trimmed off the bottom and used the original hem facing as the new hem facing.

I removed the facing with this handy dandy tool from Kai Scissors and Pac Fabrics:

I am willing to bet this will be at their booth at SewExpo. 

You mark from the edge with the t-square and use the facing as the cutting line.

The hem was to fall just below the bottom of the pockets.

Sew it back on, iron, topstitch. Life is good. I did handsew the facing to the back of the pocket (so I didn't sew them shut at the hemline)

Another batch of choir clothes came in yesterday, but we'll get to them later.

Some of the black hems failed. Some did not. Some failed in epic fashion.

None of the blue skirts failed.

The front hems failed. The back hems did not. And not all of them. "A lot of them", which is not a great or useful damage report.

There is more stretch potential on the front skirt than the split piece back.

Hmmmmmmm!

We will find out where the fail faulted and fix. Next week's edition.

Faboo!

Plant the flag and declare victory over 8813 Tilton

I have issues. And I'm tired of editing this piece. So we're just going to plant the flag and declare victory, right now.

This dress has potential. Particularly the view on the right, the grey with the contrast center.

Ignore the plaid mismatch. That tshape back seam and the line of the cut on sleeves has real possibilities.

The central gathered panel creates texture, but the vertical line it creates is crucial to the front style lines, which you cannot see in this version, because plaid.  It could break into two pieces.  It could be elasticated.
It should not be plaid.
The v neck needs to be longer. It looks cut off and frumpy up at my adjusted height.

Assembling the center panel first is key, especially with the frailty of that neck line seam. It wants to be pinned out and hand gathered, it wants attention. It's a focal point and can show off some short trims and fancy stitching.

You could even break it up into components and get a folded in effect in the center.
It wants a neckline facing, for structure and to stop cutting into the back of my neck.

The pockets are gappy and huge and useless as pockets. 
Stuff falls out, they catch on anything nearby (oven knobs and chair arms were my bete noire).

On the pattern, view A suggests you fold over 2 inches as a pleat after you sew it up.

I'd take 4 inches in at that point, two inches from the pocket lining and pleat the interior pocket lining to make the bag.

Pleated like a loooong dart.

FYI: that only leaves a 64 inch wide skirt (half section to 32" here).That's plenty wide.

I'd add that lost width to the back skirt central seam, and distribute it in gathers across the back horizontal seam.
(the back of the dress is a straight drop - all the fullness is in the front. 
I don't know about you, but I have plenty of junk in my trunk)
Because of the cut-on sleeve, anyone with boobs is going to need to do an FBA on a dartless bodice.

https://www.paprikapatterns.com/how-to-do-a-full-bust-adjustment-on-a-dartless-shirt/

That gather line looks so sad and pathetic. I should have done it by hand.

Fabric note: lawn weight shirting does not have enough give for this, and makes hard edges.  Wearability note: the back neck seam cuts into the back of my lower neck on that folded seam line.

It wants a facing, not just the roll over twice and stitch edge.

But it folds over at the back neck, and there's those gathers, which remember, provide some texture.

So, going to draft one.

Take center piece

Trace the top section to first gather line.

Add a seam allowance at the bottom edge

Add a seam allowance to the top of what will be the new bottom piece of the center panel

  

Slice

Label

Transfer markings from outside edge

Smooth that line out

Check your work (is it going to be the finished height you want at the back of the neck?)

Try it on. Why not?

Slice off the too wide part. Compare to original.

Now of course I need to sew one.

That's not coming up next, however.  I'm sewing a shirt for the spouse out of this fabric. Like the guy said, this is a battle I cannot really win, so: 

I win I win I win.

And I'm just sewing on buttons.

And there he is. The Spouse. His turned out well.....

Prom Time! 2018

I don't have daughters, and there's not much costume work right now.

So prom.

We have two participants in the dress queue. Both with chiffon outer skirts.

One was purchased awhile ago by F'ces, Empress of the Universe (LLC), and then finals and stuff happened, and it needs to be let out.

This photo really says it all for me. There's a girl in a dress that won't zip up, and her mom and me and pins and a tape measure. I have other photos for reference of how much and where, but do you need to see this? No. I need a couple of inches to add.

And there's not much to shop from to add. I have an almost-similar-but-not-quite lining fabric to fill where it won't show so much.

So things have to be pieced together.

I found more 'outside' chiffon lining the back bodice. Why? So I could cut it out and use it.

Thanks Prom Dress Maker!

I made myself a sandwich of chiffon and lining and some mystery fabric mesh for a stable base. 

All machine basted in place

Stitched the pieces, cut them up. I pinked to save a finishing step later

And in this light, on the table, yes you can see it clearly. If F,EotU doesn't lie down on a brightly lit table with her arm over her head (either side), we're good.

And I think it needs more pins on the inside....

Also needs more in the skirts (yes, a chiffon and two lining layers)

So we gotta find that and it 's going to show more, so I need to find some of the original lining to cut for the outermost of the two skirts. The chiffon has some pleating that I can undo enough to get an inch.

The inner skirts have a little extra kick in the back below the zip. We can use that.

That long wedge fills the gap

Inside of a dress

Outside of a dress. 

There are prettier photos of F,EotU, but none that make her look more empirical than this one. It's actually a little too big in the waist now, but she had a great time at prom and could dance and move around, so I call it good.

Love that hoomin.

You didn't think I was going to leave the dress out of it, did you? Yes, it's overexposed. Need to work on the home photo set up this summer. I have been studying all your MMMay photos for ideas. 

Dress Two is a shorter story. General Leia Huttslayer's* niece bought a dress online and it showed up with a spray of what looked like bleach dots on the skirt.

Blingle to distract and cover!

Bad little bleach dots!

Blingle to the rescue. We'll camoflage the error with sparkle.

Nice enough, but the General wants to add some rhinestones, as she does

So pro tip: if you're gluing them on chiffon, you can suspend the area over a pie plate so the glue dries on the chiffon and doesn't glue the stones to the other stuff through the chiffon.

The Niece is in there somewhere, before the rhinestones.

*her burlesque title.