Tailoring: Simple Stripe Seam Match-Up

I covered this topic in a previous post, but anyways, here it is again!

I bought this green sweater at the thrift store. I love the colors, but it was a bit big across the bust. No problem. Usually, I try a shirt/sweater on, look in a mirror, and pinch around the excess to see how much I need to take something in. I did that for this sweater, however, I needed to do an extra step if I wanted the stripes to match up.

Okay, this really only works if the garment you are tailoring has stripes that ALREADY match up, or almost match up, at the seams. If the stripes are way off to begin with, trying to force them to match up will result in a bunched up mess.

Also, I know I usually tailor things around the armpit: the sleeve and the bust area. That's how I'm built. This may not be where you need to tailor. Maybe you have smaller hips and a larger bust. So for you, you would pin around the hip area. Same principle, just a different area. You can do this anywhere you need to.

So here is how you do it. First put a pin at the edge of the stripe from the top layer down into the bottom layer.

Now, lift up the seam and see if the pin is sticking through the edge of the stripe on the other side. This one magically was, so I didn't need to adjust anything.

Then, with the seam lifted, stick the pin back into the bottom layer and through to the top following the same stripe, like this.

Now flip the seam back down and. . .See?! A problem! See how the pin is coming up through the stripe instead of at the edge of the stripe? How to fix: Pick up JUST the top layer off the point of the pin. . .

And gently adjust it so that the pin is now sticking through at the edge of the stripe.

Here are a series of pins from the top. . .

And here are the same pins from the other side. They all match up perfectly from both sides.

Then, sew over the pins. Don't pull them out until you actually sew over each pin. Keep those stripes held in place until the last possible second!

Ta da! You can see a slight discrepancy near the armpit, but. . .who's gonna look that close? Only a very creepy weirdo with no life. 

Looks good enough in my book! You're done. Now, go work on your next project!

The End!

Refashioning: Updating and Deleting a Weird Hem-Line Stripe Trend

Remember this stripe trend from the 90s? It was that sort of nautical thing that Tommy Hilfiger made so popular. (This dress is Liz Claiborne if that tells you anything.) Anyways, I found this dress at Goodwill, and I really liked the thicker stripes, but those narrow ones at the bottom hem just looked really dated to me. Also, the length of the dress was about four inches below the knee--not a good length for me.

So, this is what I did to fix it.

I folded the unwanted striped area in half and pinned it.

This is a close up of the pinning. See how I pinned right along the black part?

This is the pin from the other side. I tried to make sure that all my pins followed along the black line on either side of the fold.

Here is a series of the said pins all along the black stripe that I wanted to keep.

As I sewed, I kept just to the left of the pins to make sure that none of the white peeked through on either side.

After sewing, I ironed the fold up.

And then I top-stitched the fold to keep everything from shifting underneath.

Here you can see my sewing and top-stitching from the back.

Then I cut off the excess of the fold.

( I realize that I could have just cut off the entire bottom hem of the dress and created a new hem, but this way I could keep the actual manufacturer's hem. Plus, I didn't want the dress to be too short. Plus, I liked the big, thick black stripe.)

And here is my completed dress! And you'd be none the wiser if I hadn't told you!

To me, it looks a lot more timeless now.

The End!