Alterations

Altering clothes is a skill I kinda wish I didn't have. Instead of going out and buying new clothes that fit (= fun!), I feel compelled to alter stuff instead (= tedious and not fun whatsoever, and sometimes results in a broken sewing machine). I have a whole stack of cute projects to sew but told myself I needed to do my mending and altering pile first. So there it has sat for months, peering out at me with a disgusted look, saying "Fix me!!!" in a screechy voice and making me feel guilty every single day. I'd finally sewed up all the holes and tears in Mark and Madelyn's clothes a week or two ago, but still had alterations to do. Well, here's what I got done today:

 Stuff magically gets ironed when you do alterations, too!

 Madelyn came home from a field trip one day wearing this shirt. (I forgot to take a "before" photo, but just picture something hideously big and boxy.) 

 It's a Polar Pride shirt for her elementary school, which the kids are supposed to wear on Fridays. I'd never bought her an official school t-shirt (because they were hideously big and boxy) and she just wore school colors instead. Finally I decided to do something about this one.

 

I didn't take pictures of the steps because even though I've altered a LOT of t-shirts, I still haven't perfected how to get smooth armpits in the process. But I trimmed off close to 2 inches from each side, and then shortened the sleeves using this method, usually used for hemming pants.

 Using that same method (which keeps the original hem), I decided to shorten a pair of pajama pants that had shrunk and were too short for pants but not short enough for capris.

  

Keeping the pants right side out, I rolled up the legs about six inches on each side (using a measuring tape to make sure everything was even all around) and pinned. Everything below the original hem will be cut off.

  

 Then I sewed right below the original stitch line.

 Dug out my pinking shears form the garage.....

  

 Cut down towards the new seam

 ...and then cut all the way around

 Flipped the hems down, pressed with an iron

...and then sewed right above the new seam so that it would lie flat. See how the original hem with the notch is still there? Nifty.

It's not perfect, but it's good enough for pajamas! If it wasn't striped fabric, you probably wouldn't be able to tell.

Then when I tried them on, they looked my legs look like XXXL fat sausage legs, so I turned them inside out and sewed one inch from the inseam all the way around.

I highlighted the new seam in blue.


 Then I trimmed off the excess, and in the process cut a giant hole in the seat of the pants, which I then had to stitch up, and Mark looked at me like I was crazy for STILL TRYING to make something out of these stupid pants.

But I wore them to bed and they fit and were comfy, so I'm keeping them.

Anyway.

 Then I tried to do the same thing to this pair of jeans. "Tried" being the operative word.

 

 Oh, look who's awake to help!.......

 The problem was, these are boot cut jeans, so the hem is slightly flared. If I was just trying to shorten them by an inch or two, it probably would have worked. The pajama pants worked because they had straight cut legs. But the jeans had extra material to try to ease in (and denim does no such thing), so it bunched and puckered and got stuck in the machine. So I just unpicked the seam and now they're back to normal. SEW before you CUT! (The tutorial I was using said to cut before you sew. Maybe that lady never make mistakes, who knows. But there's no going back after you cut.)

 Now on to something (hopefully, maybe) fun!!!