Repairs and Alterations

January 12, 2018 by steelyseamstress 5 Comments

Who has a pile of clothes that sit around waiting to be repaired? Who puts off making alterations in favour of a totally new project? I’m going to hold my hand to both of those!

This past year I have been trying to break these bad habits. It hasn’t been entirely successful, but I can claim that I did do some repairs and alterations. And because I want to feel positive about doing this and I suspect, I just want to hear some encouragement from you super people in the blogosphere, I thought I’d write a post about it.

On the repair front, I managed to darn quite a few socks (although there are a few pairs of thick tights that need my attention). I also managed to sort through all the socks and re-pair (that’s put them in pairs again) when I could. The rest just hit the graveyard of lone socks.

For alterations I picked three items that needed something doing to them. They ranged from simple to time-consuming.

Sorbetto Top

This is my favourite Sorbetto top and one that I wear regularly. I think I know more about how to fit a sleeveless top these days, but my main gripe with this top is that it cuts a little too high under the arms. It isn’t a bit deal; it’s not hugely uncomfortable nor does it look bad on me. It’s just a niggle really. To make the adjustment I took off the bias-binding from the armholes, cut the holes a little deeper and reapplied some new bias-binding.

Written like that it doesn’t seem like I did much, but given that I made the bias-binding myself from the same fabric as the top, it did take some time to do.

It’s a really small change and just improves the fit a little. If I was going to make a sleeveless top now, with hindsight I’d add a little more fabric into the bust dart to stop the gaping at the armhole.

Effort required 5/10

Happiness 6/10

Favourite Sorbetto Top

Corduroy Trousers

This pair of trousers has always been a little on the loose side and since I made them I’ve discovered that I really do prefer a graded waistband on my trousers. With this in mind, I used the pattern piece from the Grainline Moss skirt and made a new waistband. Sadly, as I was doing this extensive alteration I noticed that these trousers are getting rather threadbare. To some extent, I feel that I shouldn’t have bothered with the alteration as there is such limited life left for them.

Effort required 7/10

Happiness 3/10

Autumnal Corduroy Trousers

Classic checked shirt

My last alteration was very simple. One of the problems with the shirt pattern I used was that it only had xx buttons marked on the pattern. Fortunately, I realized early on that the number of buttons were not going to be sufficient and so I added some extras.  However, I don’t think I added enough buttons. When I wear a low rise pair of trousers I notice that the buttons finish before the waistband and this means that the shirt front doesn’t sit just right when it’s tucked in. It could result in the revealing of a tiny amount of belly.  This was easily fixed by adding one extra button at the bottom of the front band.

Effort required 2/10

Happiness 9/10

Classic checked shirt

Do I have any future plans for alterations? Of course I do…..but perhaps I won’t share them just yet. Without the pressure of sharing them as a plan on the blog, they might actually get done!