Learn How to Take in a Dress and Customize Your Closet
Ever wondered how seamstresses take clothing in? It’s not rocket science! I’ll show you how you can take your dress in yourself, without having to shell out more money for someone else to do it for you. It’s a quick project and will leave you with a custom-fitted dress that looks like a million bucks. The skills I’ll teach you today can also be applied to other pieces of clothing so what are you waiting for? Check out my step-by-step tutorial below to get started!
Tools and materials:
Loose dress
Measuring tape
Pins
Chalk
Seam ripper
Sewing machine
Scissors
Try on the dress and pin it where you want to alter it. Make sure to pin equally on either side of the garment so that it doesn’t end up fitting lopsided.
Remove the dress and measure to make sure that your markings are even. If needed, adjust so that the dress is symmetrical.
Turn the dress inside out and mark where you need to take it in. You’ll need to take the total measurements that you want to take the dress in, and then divide it by the number of darts and seams. This will give you how much you need to take each dart and seam in.
Use a seam ripper to separate the upper and lower parts of the garment, but only where the darts and seams are.
Use chalk to mark where you want to take it in. Do this for all the darts and side seams.
Remember to take in the facing as well.
Now, sew along the new seams that you’ve drawn. As you can see from the picture, unseaming the darts allows the fabric to lie flat. Make sure that the dart faces down as you sew it so that it will sit on you nicely.
I also decided to take in the shoulder a bit to make the dress fit better.
A good fit makes all the difference! How have you altered your clothes to fit you better? Let me know in the comments below!
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