easy way of making waisted dress fit a shorter person [tutorial]

if you ask me, being short brings many adventages and I never had any real or mental problem with it:) when you're 158 cm you can comfortably squeeze yourself into whatever bus/plane/train seat which is great during long journeys. besides, being petite makes people instinctively more sensitive about you - I bet the great desmond morris would have a lot to say about that.

HOWEVER, it's pretty obvious that being shorter than average (just as being taller/with wider or narrower hips/smaller or larger bust etc.) may cause problems when it comes to clothes that are designed to fit „average” measurements. for me it very often means that when I try a dress that is supposed to be fitted in waist, it will simply have waist where I have hips and hips where I have thighs. a disastrous look, as you can imagine:) I want to show you a very simple way of rectifying that problem.

NOTE: if you're learning to sew, it's a great way of exercising your skills - it's a very simple, yet practical test.

materials: all you'll need is basic sewing equipment (pins, scissors, measuring tape, sewing machine) and a waisted dress. I used a summer dress I found long time ago on a flea market. it's obviously too large and too „high” for me – the skirt part should start just beneath my waist and yet it hangs low, somewhere on my hips.
remebmer to take into concideration that a finished dress will be shorter than it's right now.




here goes a very brief description of what my standard procedure in such circumstances is:


1. unstitch the part with the skirt – you'll have two seperate parts now: a „skirt” and a „blouse”. Let's start with the second one.
2. take your measurement: measure how many cm there are from your arm to waist – that's going to be the lenght of the blouse (remember to leave it ca 1 cm longer – you'll need it to sew the two parts together). additionally if the dress is too large, measure your bust and waist – that's going to be the width of the upper and lower part of the blouse. Remember to turn it inside out, mark the measurements and simply narrow it. Try in on – if it's ok, you're done with this part, if something's too loose/tight/long, you'll need to unstitch it and do it again. a remark: if you want the blouse-part to be really fitted and the fabric doesn't stretch, you may need to sew in a zipper on the side/back. The dress from the photo was meant to stay a bit loose, so this time I didn't bother myself with a zipper as I can smoothly put it on through my head.
3. now, let's get to the skirt – if you want to have a plain dress, you will have to make sure that the upper part of the skirt is of the same width as the lower part of the blouse. that means, that you'll probably have to narrow the skirt a bit. of course, you may as well go for some ruffles/folds in the waist – in that case, don't narrow the skirt, just pin it to the blouse the way you fancy and sew it together.
4. last part – turn both parts inside out, pin them together and simply sew it together. you're done.



this is what I often do with my dresses and I find it the best and easiest way to make them fit well. there's no philosophy behind it and you don't have to be extremly skilled with a sewing machine (I defenitely am not;)).

cheers!
-oh

learning to sew - an easy appliqué DIY

it was long time coming and finally happened: I sat at the sewing machine and pressed the foot control! yup, I learn to sew and I'm pretty excited about that;)
sewing was always one of the things that I really wanted to learn, but when I was small there was nobody to teach me and when I grow up I kind of got used to the fact that it's simply sth I don't know (silly, right?). and then I've met t. who could sew anything and my efforts (there were some trials...) seemed sensless. I thought I will never be able to sew like him, so why bother?
fortunatelly, I've shaken it off and finally sat at the machine. and you know what? it's been one hell of a ride:) there were some ups and downs, but in general there is only one thing I can say: I LOVE IT!

ok, that was a long introduction...
now, getting to the point, I guess the most important thing while learning to sew is to start with the right project. in my earlier endavors I used to be too ambitious, wanted to sew complicated things not really knowing how the machine works. you can imagine how frustrating and daunting it was. this time I thought of sth simple, sth doable for a sewing dummy: an appliqué.

there was a nice opportunity: my friends got a baby-girl some time ago and I really wanted to make sth for her, so first I wrote a tiny-tiny lullaby and then sat to work:
1. prepared stripes of frayless fabric in different colours and cut the words out. I've made sure that words standing next to each other are in different colours
2. took some colourfull fabric leftovers and cut rectangles that serve as background for the words. to make sure the fabric won't fray, I've ironed the edges inwards (tip: fabrics with small patterns make the best background)
3. for the final layer: cut four larger stripes of fabric (one for each line of the lullaby). they have to be wide enough to fit all the words and leave some extra for sewing the stripes together
4. now, the best part: sewing all the layers together, one by one! first I've attached all words to their backgrounds sewing not only on the edges but also between letters, so that the frayless fabric sticks better. it's a pretty good exercise for a sewing starter. then, when all of my words had their backgrounds sewn together I placed them in line on the final layer, pinned and started to sew. there should be some space below and above the words so that you could sew all the larger stripes together - this was the most difficult part for me as the stripes were almost 1,5 m long:)
5. the end: framing. I've cut four stripes of material - two of the appliqué's hight and two of its lenght, again ironed the edges inwards and simply sewn it to the appliqué's edges.
6. I wanted my appliqué to be able to hang, so I've also sewn four little hooks on the upper edge

et voila!

all in all, it's pretty easy to do it. there is a lot of cutting, true, but also a lot of basic sewing and this is a great way of learning the easiest things: how the stitches go, how does the machine work, how to use the foot control etc. t. was right when he told me to experiment with the machine's settings and simply not to be affraid: when sth goes wrong you can always try doing it again. and again;)

yay, sorry for making it all soooo long. have a great weekend!
-oh