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!

Modification: Update Your Trouser Jeans

I have about five pairs of the trouser jeans you see below. I love them, but they are sooooo 2005. I tried to sell two of them on eBay since they are really nice Uniqlo jeans that I bought in South Korea, but no one ever bought them. Then I got an idea. If you have any old 90s or early 2000s wide leg jeans, you can do this too. It takes about 10 minutes.

You can only do this well if you can find a seam down the outer seam or inseam of your pants that isn't top stitched. Usually, it will be the outer seam, and the inseam will be top stitched like below:

This is the outer seam. See the difference? See how you can see stitches over the seam above, but you can't below?

NOTE: If your jeans are top stitched on both sides, you are out of luck with this project. It's hard to explain why if it's not already apparent to you. Just trust me.

Then, turn the pants inside out and grab a pair of skinnier jeans. 

Align the inseams of both pairs of pants. 

You are only going to use the skinny jeans as a guide, not a pattern. Instead of cutting all the way close to them, you are going to allow for the grain of the trouser jeans' fabric. If you look at the lower leg in the picture below, I have denoted the grain of the fabric with yellow lines and then shown you where I actually cut with a red line. It's kind of hard to explain, but if you cut too much into the grain of the jeans from here, the outer seam is going to look weird because it will be cut on the bias which will make it stretch slightly compared to the inseam. Suffice to say, if you cut too much into the grain of the fabric, it will be a dead giveaway that these were "DIY" pants. (A potential way to fix this would be to even the cutting up along the inseam; however, if you do, you need to cut all the way up the inseam from the feet to the crotch and sew a brand new inseam yourself. Remember how I mentioned that inseams are usually top stitched? This is to add bulk for durability's sake, but  if you want to make really skinny jeans, it would be better to do away with the original top stitched inseam all together than to try to cut the inseam from the feet to the knee only. It's really hard to explain. If you do the latter "feet to knee" option, you will have a weird bulge from the bulk of the original top stitching. Just trust me.) Just try to follow the grain with your scissors on the outer seam as much as possible. Then, simply sew up your cut seams.

Before:

After:

What I made aren't really skinny jeans--more like straight leg or boyfriend cut.

I know I got super wordy up there trying to explain myself, so if I lost you, just follow these simple directions:

1. Find a seam that is not top stitched on your jeans (usually the outer seam).

2. Turn your jeans inside out and lay a skinnier pair on top of them.

3. Using the skinnier pair as a guide (rather than pattern), follow the grain of the fabric as you cut, and then sew up the seams.

4. (Optional for really skinny jeans: cut away the entire inseam, and then even up the grain of the fabric on the outer seam so the grain goes straight down the leg.)

Here's another "Before and After":

The End!