Shoulder Alteration

Ah! It’s so sunny!!

I bought this dress a couple years ago [think Fall 2009] and, even though the top was a little large and hung way too low on me, I wore it to my cousin’s baptism. After having to pull it up every few minutes, I threw it away to the deep recesses of my closet. However, a few events on campus made me rethink this decision. I mean, it’s a nice dress and I ought to wear it if I spent my money, right? So, I got to work.

First, I figured out how much needed to be taken in, then marked and pinned it. Then I took out my seam ripper and started taking apart the sleeve.

I really didn’t plan out what I was doing so it took much longer than expected-especially since the sleeves were pretty well put together. While taking apart the sleeve, I decided to make the sleeve have a crease at the top. Since I wanted to sew it back to look like the original, I cut out a big chunk of the shoulder. There were two layers of fabric so I turned it inside out and sewed the outer layer [the part that will be flipped/shown on the outside.] Then I closed it up and folded in the inner layer’s fabric. I had no idea how to sew that portion so the thread wouldn’t show, so I just sewed as close to the edge as possible.

The extra little loop would make the crease. I pulled it in as far as possible and then hand sewed that portion to the inner layer of fabric.

I did the same to the other shoulder…or as close as possible. As I wasn’t planning ahead, I didn’t do the sleeves simultaneously and by the time I had to do the second sleeve, I forgot how much I cut off the shoulder. Luckily, my trial and error turned out well :]

Now, there’s a cute little puff on each sleeve and the top of the dress fits me as it should!

Odd place to take a photo, but oh well. There was an award ceremony for Honor Roll students in the Chemistry Department. They provided dinner for the student and my parents decided to come–too bad I’m not a Chem major; they had some nice awards.

Just for fun-my face while looking at the line of people to get food.

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