How to Alter a Dress
It’s so annoying when there’s a dress you love but it doesn’t fit you quite right. That’s what happened to me with the dress in this tutorial. I really did want to keep this dress, though, so I knew that I just needed to make it fit me well. In this tutorial, I’ll show you the steps I took to alter the dress so that it would look great on me. I do love the way it turned out.
Tools and materials:
- Ruler
- Scissors
- Pencil
- Needle and thread
- Sewing machine
- Dress
Mark your measurements
The first thing I did was lay my dress out and measure 1.5” from the waistline. I then tapered from that point to the underarm seam, blending it to the original side seam as best I could. I then measured down about 6” in the skirt portion and did the same thing.
Hand sew
Next, I handstitched the dress. You can also use a sewing machine, but it was so easy and satisfying to just sew it by hand. Once I was done sewing, I cut off the excess. Because of the material I was working with, I didn’t even have to worry about serging it.
Shorten the bodice
To shorten the bodice, I put the bodice inside the skirt, and from the skirt waist down, I measured 1” all the way around. I also removed the button so that I didn’t accidentally sew over it. I did use my sewing machine for this part, and used a stretch stitch.
Adjust the elastic
I seam ripped the elastic that was attached to the original waistband and trimmed off the excess fabric. Then I sewed the elastic back in place like it was before I made the adjustments. Stretching lightly as I sewed, I topstitched it to the raw edge of the fabric.
That’s it, you guys! How easy was that?! In just five minutes I had my dress altered to my body. I love the way it looks now, and I can’t get over how quick and simple of a project this was. If you have any dresses that are too big for you, be sure to give this a try. Don’t forget to show me your versions in the comments!
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Great job! I will try it myself.
The dress looks perfect on you - great job.
My problem is my dresses are too small!