Tag Archives: Before and After

Before and After: Mlle Gabrielle Dress

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Before

Sometimes an alteration will dramatically change the look of an item.  And sometimes it is more about making something more comfortable.  Today’s post was more the later.  I adored this dress as soon as I tried it on at Revolve, but while everything else fit just fine, the sleeves were painfully tight.  As in, I really couldn’t move my arms tight.  I decided to take my seam ripper to the task, and see if I could make them work.  If I couldn’t, I was going to make the dress sleeveless.

This is the sleeve inside out.  When I went to alter it, I noticed that the sleeve is gathered at the hem.  I decided to take apart this section, using my trusty seam ripper.

Turns out that the sleeves had what I will call hem tape, because I’m not sure if that’s the right term.  Because of the bias of the fabric of the hem tape (maybe this is bias tape?) it made the sleeves have less give.  It also revealed the gathering stitching.  Gathering can be a lot of fun in some areas, but here, it is making the sleeves fit tighter.

I took out the gathering stitches, and pressed the sleeve with my iron.  You can already see a noticeable difference between the altered and unaltered sleeves.

The hem tape wasn’t long enough to cover the newly altered sleeve, so I folded over the hem twice, pressed the heck out of it, and stitched it down with black thread.

And now, the finished results. The sleeves don’t look extremely different, but they fit SO much more comfortably.

Before and After: Jonathan Martin Dress

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Before

Sometimes I buy a garment that looks not so great on me off the rack, because I know of the potential it can have with the right alterations.  Such was the case with this dress.  That waist striping detail was way too long, and made my torso look odd.  And having a hem that hits at mid-calf is not very flattering on me.

But I took a good look at the fabric and seams, and I knew that it could be altered.  I decided to pass this one on to my tailor, because it involved stuff that’s a bit more complicated than my skill level, like removing and re-installing an invisible zipper.

I had my tailor remove some of the striped material from the waist section.  She then reattched the skirt portion of the dress so that it would sit higher, creating more of an empire silhouette.  This also raised the hem line several inches, so that it would hit right above my knee.  The cost of the alterations was around $30, largely because the back zipper had to be taken and put back in. (That made the total cost of the dress $42, which isn’t terribly bad)

It was worth it, because I love the final result.

After

Before and After: Express Eva Jeans

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These jeans have gone through many, many changes while I’ve had them.  Originally, they were Eva Fit and Flare Jeans from Express.  I had to dig way back in my archives to find a pic of them in their original state.

December 2008

Soon after buying these jeans, I began to realize that I really didn’t like the flared silhouette.  So in the summer of 2009, I altered them into skinny jeans and posted a tutorial.

June 2009

I kept them like this for awhile, frequently rolling up the cuffs.  Eventually, I decided that the length was not universally flattering on me – it worked with a few outfits, but generally wasn’t that great.  So I tried making them ankle length.

January 2010

This length was fun, but I often felt a bit odd.  I can’t really put my finger on it, but it just felt a bit in-between.  Not quite regular length jeans, not quite capris.  So, last week, I decided to make them capris.

April 2010

And I love them.  I’d really been wanting a pair of denim capris for the summer, and I wasn’t really wearing them a lot at the previous lengths.  I think I’ll be getting a lot more use out of them now, and I think the final result is pretty darn flattering.

Before and After: Grey Cashmere-blend Sweater

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(I’ve decided to start an occasional series on my blog called “Before and After”.  It will feature before and after photos of items that I have re-constructed (through sewing, embellishment, etc) to work better in my wardrobe.  I’ll also feature before and after shots of items that I’ve had professionally altered, and discuss what I had the tailor do.  I’m discovering that tailoring your clothes to work for you is extremely important, and that it is essential and do-able for everyone, including those who are on a tight budget.)

Today’s before and after features a grey cashmere-blend Ralph Lauren sweater that I bought at a garage sale for a mere $5.  Normally, I prefer to knit my own sweaters, but when a deal on cashmere presents itself, I tend to oblige.  Especially when the temps get as insanely cold as they did in Florida this year, and I find myself ill-prepared handknit wise.

Before: Grey Turtleneck

After buying this sweater, I wore it once, while hanging out at an outdoor bar in Tampa on a very cold night.  After that, it languished unworn in my closet.  I pinpointed several reasons why: 1) turtle-necks are not flattering on me, and they aren’t really necessary in Florida, where a scarf wrapped several times around your neck will do just fine, 2) the turtle-neck was too warm.  It was fine for being outdoors, but in over-heated offices, it was just too much. 3) While the rest of the sweater didn’t bother me, the neck itched, which meant that I had to layer a cotton-turtleneck tee underneath it, which increased problem number 2.

I noticed that all of my issues with this sweater revolved around the turtleneck.  Since I spent so little money on this sweater to begin with, and since wool is relatively easy to alter, I decided to make it into a v-neck and see what happened.

Unfortunately, I’m horrible at remembering to take pictures while I d.i.y., so I’ll just explain the process.  First, I put the sweater on.  Then, in front of a mirror, I marked with pins where I wanted the new neckline to be (this would work better on a dressform, but I don’t have one yet).

After that, I took the sweater off, and cut out the new neckline, leaving about 1 inch extra.  I then folded that extra inch under and pinned it down.  After that, I machine-stitched three lines of stitching to make sure it was down there fine.

After: Grey V-neck sweater

Is this the most professional job I could have done?  No.  I could have serged the knit fabric, and faced it with a soft cotton.  But I didn’t really feel that was necessary, and I’m pleased with the result I got.  I’ll be wearing this sweater a lot more often now.

(And just a note, because of the length, I will be wearing this sweater with skirts and dresses.  I took the pictures with jeans just because that was what I already had on).

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