Alteration Trials and Tricks

Related to my addiction to clothes is my alterations passion. Rather than give away clothes which I previously loved and wore BCDD (before celiac disease diagnosis when my stomach was bloated almost 24/7), I learned to alter garments so that they fit my current (flat abdomen) body. I haven't posted again on my blog since my birthday, because I've been busy doing alterations on dressy pants.

Several years ago I bought wide leg pants with high waists. I loved the high waist part, but I'm really too petite (short and thin) for wide leg pants. I also dislike the constant flapping of the pants bottoms against my legs. Those are dark colored, light weight wool. So I would wear them in the winter, but the wide legs don't provide much warmth. Similarly I bought flare pants, which got wider below the knee. Again too much flapping for me. So I've been working on reducing the flare (and flap) on 3 pairs of pants. After I get those to hang straight, I'll tackle 2 more pairs of wide leg pants. I'm also altering a wool bias cut skirt (from long to short plus narrowing the sides a bit).

I did include 'tricks' in the title of this post. So I need to add that if you take in one side of a pant leg (i.e. outer seam) below mid thigh, you need to take an equal amount off the other side (i.e. inner seam). Otherwise, the pleats don't hang straight.  If you have narrow hips (yeah that's a rare problem, but I have that), A-line skirts may 'collapse' on the sides and create 'tails' in the front and back of the skirt. So you need to fit the skirt pattern to your own hips or alter the finished garment (which I usually do). Bias cut skirts tend to collapse more obviously in the front and back, when your hips are too narrow. So, instead of tails, you get inverted tails or ruffles over your knees with a deep indentation between your legs. SIGH The heavier the material, the more a bias cut skirt can collapse, rather than forming even little ruffles at the  hem. I plan to take in the hip area and use a serged rolled hem to create even ruffles on my wool bias skirt.

Amidst all that I need to find time to make Valentine's Day cookies. I doubt I'll post again until after this week.