Wow! What an incredible compliment you just gave me! This is what makes all the time and effort trying to make useful videos worth it!!! I appreciate your taking the time to comment and truly hope that my perspective helps you to make the best decisions for your alterations and sewing! 🥰

Your instruction is very clear and camera showed exactly what you were explaining. Alteration in a tight space is so tricky. Thank you. Pretty fabric.

Thank you very much for your compliments, and for taking the time to comment. Yes, alterations in a tight space IS very tricky ;)

I hope this was helpful for you. Thanks for watching and commenting. It was once a problem that tall people never had pants long enough from the ready-to-wear market. Now it seems that everything is rather long. I hope that the petite market will get more of what they need also! Just watch the armholes to make sure they don't get too small with this alteration, as well as the neckline can ride too high (if it's a higher neckline to begin with). These are problems that can happen when the shoulder is taken up, so just be aware. Thank you for your comment and I hope you'll get your bodices to fit better ;)

Same here! It took me way too long to figure out why blouses always looked so sloppy on me.

Nice to be able to sew and either make your own or alter bought ones to fit!!!!

Thank you so much for your sweet comment! My grandfather was a master tailor, but he died when I was very young. I like to think it’s in the genes, somehow!!! ;) Happy binge-watching! ❤️❤️❤️

Thank you for watching and for the great compliment! You never know...maybe some day you will tackle a project like this!

I simply can't "HEART" your comment enough! Thank you so much not only for the encouragement, but gifting me with the knowledge that my video helped you! I hope that I will continue to put out videos that will help those who just simply need to know how. Many blessings to you and please stop by again!!

Thank you so much! I appreciate the compliment and encouragement 💕

Thank you so much for watching and commenting! Glad to have you here!

So glad that this will be helpful to you! I hope you have great success in your shoulder seam project. Thanks for watching and commenting!

Wonderful! So glad you keep watching. More videos are in the planning, but it just takes so much time to get them done! Thanks for watching! ❤️

You’re welcome! Glad you gleaned some useful info from this video ❤️ Thank you so much for leaving me a comment 🙂

I'm so glad you found this video! Good luck and thank you for watching and commenting ;)

You're so welcome! I hope it was helpful to you! Thanks for watching and commenting. :)

You’re welcome 😊

You’re welcome! Thank you for watching. I hope this content is helpful. :)

So happy to hear this video will be useful to you (hopefully!!!) Good luck with your alteration and thank you for taking the time to watch and comment!

You are so very welcome! Thanks for watching and leaving a comment!

You're very welcome. I hope it is helpful to you. Thanks for your comment :)

Hi Connie! Thanks so much for watching! Glad you got something out of this video :)

That's a great idea and one I also utilize. I'm so glad for modern phones where a quick pic can be easily referenced, zoomed in on, and then deleted when no longer needed! Great tip!! Thanks for watching!

I certainly do understand! That was my mantra many years ago. Building clothes from the ground up was the only way I would sew. But then I started working with a couple ladies at a store front shop, and alterations became not so daunteding. My own clothes...I make them from scratch, however! ;) Better to avoid the problems to begin with rather than to go back and fix them. ;) Thank you for watching and dropping a comment

I enjoy both sewing fron scratch and alterations so great when it is finished and ur coustomer is satasfied even though alterations takes time

@@angele8638 So very true!! Alterations can be time consuming, but it's satisfying to have a pleased customer!

I’m so glad you found my channel!! Thanks for taking the time to comment. Please enjoy the videos….. more to come! ❤️

I appreciate your comment. Thank you for taking the time to leave it. It's always my endeavor to offer content that will help people be more confident in doing alterations. I hope it has done this for you. Good luck with your dance costume...I hope it goes splendidly for you!

Thanks for watching and commenting! I appreciate your viewership!!!!

I hope it works out well for you! Thank you for watching and leaving a comment!

WOW no kidding???!!! I have been trying to get this video edited and released for over a month now. Life just kept getting in the way, you know? But I'm glad it was delayed if it somehow helped it to come across your feed just now. It makes me so happy to hear that something from one of my videos actually helps someone out. I thank you for taking the time to comment and let me know this!!

Thank you! 😊 So kind of you to leave this comment! Thanks for watching! 💕

Oh I'm so happy you found my video helpful!!! Good luck with your project! Let me know if you have any questions; I can try to provide helpful answers! :)

You are so welcome! I'm glad you found this helpful!!

What an incredible compliment. Thank you so very much. I hope this video was informative for you! Thanks for leaving a comment! ❤️

I’m very glad it will be helpful for you! Thank you for watching!

Thank you so much for letting me know that you encountered the same exact situation, especially regarding the neck binding. Sometimes I’m not sure if showing too much detail is overwhelming for a viewer, or if it’s helpful. Your comment clears it up for me. I’m so very happy my video helped you with your alteration!!!! Thanks for watching and commenting ❤️

Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I''m so glad it was helpful to you!

Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for commenting!!

Thank you ever so much for taking the time to leave this comment! It makes my heart so happy that this video helped you!!!

Oh I'm so glad you found my channel! Thanks for watching...I hope you get some information that you can use from some of my vids!!!

Thank you for watching and commenting!

That's great! I hope you're able to make the alterations you need with great success! Thanks for watching!

Thank you for watching!

That's awesome! I'm so glad to have you here :) Hopefully there are some vids here that can help you out. I'm always open for suggested topics, too, and as they come through the studio, I will feature those alterations as I'm able. Thanks for your comment!!!

You are very welcome. I'm glad it was helpful!!!

You're very welcome! So glad that you are watching! :)

Welcome to my channel, subbie from Alaska!! Always fun to know where people are from. Thanks for dropping a comment and I hope you find my content helpful to you!

You are so welcome!

You're welcome 😊Thank you for taking the time to comment

Thank you so much for watching! I hope it was helpful in some way :)

You’re welcome!

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching!!!

Thanks for watching and commenting! You’re very welcome 😊

Thanks for watching!

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for leaving a comment!

Thank you! ❤️

Hello Mexico! 😉 I’m glad you found me! Thank you so much for watching and leaving a comment!

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching :)

Glad it was helpful! Depending on the styles of your dresses, sometimes taking a dart from the armhole toward the bust can help, without having to go to the shoulder seam. On the dress featured in this video, I couldn't do that because the dart would have been quite large and because of the shaping of the dress, the armhole opening would have pitched forward, showing more of the side bra area. It was very strange, and I would rather have done it that way. But, for this dress, this was the only option we had! Good luck with your sleeveless dresses. Thanks so much for watching and commenting!

Glad you think so! Thanks so much ❤️

Thank you! ❤️

Glad it was helpful to you. Thanks for watching!

You’re welcome!

You are most welcome. Thank you for watching and commenting

Thank you!

Thanks for watching 😊

I agree with you, reverse engineering the garment is fun ;) There can be a few easons why a garment will bunch or pull up. On my client in this video, she is actually tall, and quite large busted. The proportions of the ready-made dress were just 'off' for her body type. I would rather have put darts going from the armholes toward the bust, but it would have revealed too much skin in front of her armhole (you wouldn't think so, but it would have!). Taking up the shoulder was actually a surprise fix for me, because I didn't think it was going to work...but it did! Thank you for watching and leaving your comment!!!

Yes you can! You would need to redraw the armhole to its original size after you take up the shoulder, and you’d remove the entire sleeve. You can make a template of your original armhole before you take up the shoulder, after you remove the sleeve. Then after you take up the shoulder, use your template by matching it to the new shoulder seam and side seam (it’ll be a little lower on the side seam than the original hole), and draw the new armhole, and cut it out. Now your old sleeve will fit perfect in! Good luck and thank you for watching!

Thank you for leaving a comment. Please look at the video description and there you will find a link to my personal business site. You can email me from there…. Or at least start a conversation with me so I can get my email to you ;)

In the case of this dress, nothing needed to be changed regarding darting issues. Now if you had a dress and there were bust darts that got raised too much during this process, the pattern rule is: if the point of the dart is somewhere within the 3” radius of the bust circle(aka: the radius around bust apex), it’s within proper guidelines. Oftentimes though we think it looks too high and want it lowered. It’s possible it could be angled downward but all depends on if fabric is cut away either within the dart or on the side seam, where there’s usually a triangular type of shaping change that happens at the base of the dart. If there’s enough in the side seams to recreate the dart in a new location, that could be done, too. This is probably way more answer than you wanted but I tried to include what I thought was the most complete explanation! Hope it helped somewhat! Thanks for watching!!!!

Wow! Thanks for the compliment on my camera shots! LOL! Definately not professional here on the video-front. Those were probably with my iphone, to tell you the truth! Thanks for watching, and I just usually leave my teflon foot on, unless I need to use my zipper, or buttonhole foot. I find it just sews smoothly over everything, but defintely not necessary!! Thanks for watching! :)

Hi! Thank you for watching my videos

Glad it was helpful. As far as I know it's just a gathered cap sleeve :) Thank you for leaving a comment!

On an unrelated note, I love your hair!

Hi there! Thank you for stopping by and watching my video. Let me try to address your swayback (which I also have). Are there any seams (princess seams?) on the back? If the entire waistline of the dress is falling lower than it should, is there any way you can let out seams around your hip are, to release fabric so that it will freely fall without catching on your hips? If you can achieve that, then you can either add darts in the back (3" to each side of center back), or take in the seams in that area if there are princess seams, just above where the sway back issue is. Not sure if that makes any sense, without having seen your dress. Of course, if there is a waist seem in back then you can raise the skirt portion onto the bodice, thus taking away that extra bodice fabric that is catching up. This is a great idea for a video, and I'll put it in my list of possibilities. I'll keep an eye out if I have this particular problem come through my studio :)

Aw! That's so sweet :) Thank you!!

AH! You are so observant!!! Actually I use a Teflon foot for everything, other than when I need a zipper foot, or occasionally a 1/4" edge stitching foot. Thanks for watching!

@@SewDarnedFun I’m curious as to why you prefer the non stick foot. I do have one but I haven’t employed it’s use yet. Thank you again for your reply.

@@jmjcc5 I use it because it has little corners/angles in its shape that I like to use as markers to line up topstitching from seams, or under-stitching, giving me an 1/8" measuring point ;) Also, maybe because I just don't find it necessary to change my foot all the time. With the Teflon, it'll work great on any fabric, and I have those nice little 'line-up' points on the foot for topstitching ;)

Thanks for watching! You can't always predict the issues that will arise when you deconstruct something that was made by someone else, so you will have problems that come up that need to be problem-solved! Yes, I use a Teflon foot, but mostly because I know it'll work smoothly with all my fabric, and I like the little angles that are on it to visually mark different measurements from the needle. That's just me, though ;) I don't recall what I charged for this. Nor would I want to put it out there publically. Basically, though, I take the amount that I want to be paid for my skilled profession (and yes...people WILL pay for a job they cannot do), and that amount will differ throughout the country and world, depending on the cost of living in your area. Then I try to estimate how long I think the project will take (this, however, only comes through experience and learning my proficiency). Then I charge accordingly by my estimated hours of work and my per hour charge. I like my client to know up front what the cost will be without any "OOOPS, your project took 10 hours instead of only two" mishaps, if I was to charge after the fact by how many hours. Yes, there are projects that seems to make more, because I finish them quicker than I project, and ones that take longer. It evens out in there somewhere! Having explained all that, sometimes I get EXTRA SPECIALTY project...those with a lot of hand work, etc....that I will indeed charge according to how many hours I actually work on it, because these are projects I haven't done before. My client will know up front what the possible charges could be. I hope my lenghty explanation was of some help!

@@SewDarnedFun That was a perfect answer, and I appreciate your honesty. I have been sewing since I was young enough to sit up to the machine with my Mom and I’m 65. I’ve done extensive sewing and quilting, but I’m only recently exploring the business side. My current project is a wedding dress into a Christening dress. I had no choice but to estimate my time in order to give the Mom a price. I’m tracking my sewing steps vs. time spent carefully for future reference.

Good for you!! A good seamstress is in great demand currently (at least in my area). There are those who settle for ‘ok’ alterations and those who want ‘excellent’ alterations. Sounds like you’re very organized and very wise of you to keep track of your time on projects etc. ❤️Love your christening dress project at the moment. What a great idea and use of a wedding dress!

Hi Connie! I will try to put out more, as time allows!!!!

Thank you for watching! If you are having trouble with patterns, before you cut everything out you might be able to just angle your shoulder seem down a bit. I usually have to do this on my own me-made clothing. I draw the shoulder seam (on both front and back pattern pieces) from the neck edge as the pattern has it, then slant the seam so that it's 1/4" lower when it hits the tip of the shoulder. I then have to lower the armhole by 1/4" because I've just made the armhole smaller when I angled the shoulder seam. HHmmm....and idea for a future video, I think! Thanks for leaving a comment :)

@@SewDarnedFun thank you! I’ll try it in the future!

Yes, see if it works! I know it helps my garments not to stick up on the corner of my shoulders ;)

Wow, that's an interesting problem to have. It sounds like your approach is a good one. If you have to take the back vertical princess seam dart far down enough in order to avoid a bulge, then the circumference of the garment might be less than you want around the bust. You *could* perhaps, then, let out a little on the side seams (if there's any extra) to make up for what is taken in on those back princess seams. I'd love to hear how this all turns out for you. A rather complicated issue, and your problem solving seems to me to be heading in the right direction. Good luck!

Well if it makes you feel any better, the patternmaking rules for bust darts is that they need to end somewhere inside the bust circle, which by definition is a 2" circle at the apex of the bust. The dart can end higher or lower and still be considered correct. But, then we come to the issue if whether or not you like where it falls. I wonder if maybe the dart can just be angled down so that the point of it is lower. I also wonder if the fitting issue you are describing is the same (or not) that I cover in this video. Taking a tuck in the back (if I understand correctly) wouldn't solve the issue that I had with this particular dress. Keep in mind, also, that taking up the shoulders would be secondary to first seeing if make the existing dart larger would work. In my case, for whatever reason, a larger bust dart did not solve the problem. I hope this makes sense!! Thanks for watching!

*Currently I have a garment in queue that is awaiting this fix/alteration*. If you're making a garment from scratch, then you would simply lower the armhole shape, after changing or sloping the shoulder seam the amount needed. On a garment that is already made (like on the garment that's currently waiting on me!) we will need to reshape the lower part of the armhole to make that now-small armhole the size it needs to be to accommodate the sleeve. You can make a template of the original shape of the armhole before any shoulder alterations, and then AFTER you do the shoulder alteration, just lower your armhole template down from the armpit until the entire potential armhole area reaches the circumference of the original armhole. I hope this is clear! Let me know if you need more clarification!

Would love to see a video on this

Thank you! I don't know what other people charge. I'm sure it's different depending on the cost of living where you are at. I can gauge that it probably takes a couple hours to do this, so I will pay myself what I want to get paid hourly times how long I think it will take to do. Pay yourself well! Alterations is a 'skilled trade' and people are willing to pay the expertise and time that you put into a quality alteration!!!

Hi there! Great observation :) Yes, I am aware there is a blade. I prefer to slide the thread out of the fabric so I don't have a bunch of little tiny bits of thread that I have to pull out of the fabric and clean up. Just makes it a bit easier on me for the clean-up, that's all. Thanks for your concern that I might not know there's a blade! Thanks for watching!

I understand how frustrating it can be to try and find clothes that fit well. This particular alteration can work if the shoulder seam stands up from the shoulder, indicating that the angle of the shoulder seam is wrong for the body, or when the bustline of the garment falls too low. However in this video, it was a rather strange alteration to do for the problem we were addressing. This gal was very big busted and the armhole was gaping. Normally when this issue happens, we need to put in a dart coming from the armhole out toward the bust (because the body is changing shape much more drastically than the cloth). BUT....if we took that dart in THIS dress, it would have created more skin showing because the cut of the armhole would have created it. Hard to explain without seeing it. So it just so happened that if we took it up at the shoulder, it did indeed alleviate the big gape that was at the armhole. So perhaps the problem indeed was a wrong shoulder angle of the dress (?). At any rate, it solved the problem, so we went with it. I don't know if that helps you any, but hopefully it will to some extent. Thanks for watching and commenting :)

I usually use a 3.5 stitch length, but can’t recall what I used on this dress. With mesh fabrics, sometimes I reduce it to 3. The size needle is most likely an 80/12. I don’t use special thread. It’s the cheapest I can find….. a box with MANY colors on small spools (so I can keep a wide array of colors in my studio for every project!). Thanks for asking :)

I hope this helped! Thanks for watching! 😊

This dress was done last year, and I have no clue what I charged!! There may have also been other alterations I did on this dress. But I do base my charges on my estimated time to do the project, and how much my time is worth (and believe me, when people hire you for a skill that they do not have, they ARE willing to pay). Hope that helped a little! Thank you so much for watching!

Thank you for taking the time to respond. It does. I’ve been sewing and quilting for years and realizing now that I have some skills! I want to try sewing clothes for me. 🐞

When a person comes for a fitting, I am able to pin excess fabric out and know what needs to be changed. The dress fit perfectly, as you can see from the photo inserted into this video, from the process I used. Thank you for watching and your input. :)

I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean when you say ‘below the neck’. But no matter, you should only do any alteration to the point that the problem you’re trying to fix is eliminated. Make sure her armholes aren’t too tight and that the bust line falls in an acceptable place. Please comment again if this doesn’t answer your question! I’d really like to help if I can ❤️

Thank you for your input. It was just me thinking it brought it up to high to her neck. She seem ok with it. I enjoy watching and learning from you☺☺

Sounds like you did a good job! Bravo!! I'm glad you enjoy watching...such a kind compliment!

😊

Thanks for watching!

I’m so sorry this is your situation. Might be time for you to learn how to do your own sewing and learning a bit of pattern making so you can alter your patterns to fit your body!!!! ;) Or… just do your own alterations. You’ll find out why it costs what it does!

I use a 'Hi-Steam' mini boiler iron. Thanks for asking. :)

Hi there! Thanks for watching! It’s hard to talk specifics regarding price, as the cost of living in different parts of the U. S., as well as around the world, are quite different. Probably you can gauge what someone charges per hour for their skill, and figure it could take a couple hours to do this, depending on their proficiency. So this might help you figure out what you would charge, or what you might pay someone else to do it. :)

Just curious what your thought process is. If the original shoulder seam wasn't done as a French seam, and it would have been easier to replicate the original type of seam, less time consuming and less costly for my client, would the French seam have any benefit? I can see doing it this way if one doesn't have a serger, and certainly a French seam is nice for longevity. If you can provide some insight for me, I'm open to it and would love to hear it. Thank you for watching!

Yes, that could have been done, and that is a process I showed in one of my latest videos. Sometimes certain decisions are made based on what the client is wanting to pay, and any time constraints we have. With this dress, she was happy with a slightly gathered cap. Being that we didn't need to keep the armhole as wide around the arm as the original, my other option would have been to do what you suggested, and take in the sleeve on the underarm seam, then reshape the underarm area (again, outlined in my other video), then replace the sleeve. That would be much more work, and the easiest (least expensive) solution for my client was to gather the sleeve cap. But yes, of course, you are right in that removing the entire sleeve, redrawing the armhole, then replacing the sleeve is a solution that would have preseved the original look of the sleeve :) Thanks for watching and your great assessment of this sleeve and armhole!

That's a matter of opinion. I love gathered sleeves.

Thanks you for watching and for your input! I will assess the ad issue on this video...you're the first person to say anything so I'll certainly check into it! Thanks for letting me know. Happy Sewing!!!

Thank you so much for watching. I'm glad you are able to glean some things from my experiences. I appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment

You're welcome!