There is a box, in the corner of my sewing room.
It is a box whose content have not seen the light of day for many a month.
Many crafters will be familiar with this box.
In all of its forms.
There's the ever growing amorphous lump that lies underneath your desk
the monster underneath your bed
The stuff you vacuumed packed in a fit of organization and stuffed into your garage
in the hopes that'd you never have to deal with it again
This my friends
is the unfinished sewing pile
The item that I'm grabbing out of the box today is actually a dress of my mums
that I recently took from my parents house
without my mum realizing
Now I know that this dress is too short for my mum
and because of that she is unable to wear it
so the plan is to fix it for her
and to make it longer as a Mother's Day present
So the first thing that I did was to grab the fabric
that I wanted to use to extend the dress.
I wanted to something to match the colour and the arm hole cuffs
So I found this really similar fabric
A black non stretchy linen of medium weight
To get the right amount of fabric for the bottom of the dress
I placed this linen below the dress like this
and then aligned up the top edge of the linen with the bottom of the dress
I folded over the linen like this
Now, I wanted to extend the dress by this amount
So, I drew a rectangle onto the folded linen like this
Now the length of the rectangle
is doubled the desired amount that I wanted to extend it by
plus one inch for the seam allowance
and the width is just the same as the dress plus an inch
for both seam allowance and a little extra just for insurance
So I cut out this rectange
cutting through both layers of fabric
and now I have a rectangle of linen that's this big
What I did next
was to fold this linen piece in half length wise like this
Then I gave it an iron
and then I sewed down both ends of the strip of fabric, like this
The stitching down this folded edge will make a kind of fake hem.
Now, if you're thinking "Annika, why did you bother with that extra long rectangle
if you were just going to fold it and make a fake hem?"
Well, there's two reason's for this
1 is that I wanted to make it just as thick, as the cuffs and the collar
which are also two layers
and 2 is that, I just hate hemming things
and if i can avoid it, I will
and I also think that this method looks a little bit more neat.
To sew I used a straight stitch and a thread in a matching colour
Then, once I'd done that
I folded the piece of material in half, this way
I matched up the folded edge with the side of the dress on the left side
and then I made an imaginary line extending down from the right side of the dress
and then I drew this line onto the black linen material
and then, I sewed down this line
through all four layers of material, again using a straight stitch
Now, I don't want the raw edges of this piece to fray once it's attached to the dress
so what I do next is going to stop them fraying
Now one method to stop fraying is to use a pair of scissors like this
called pinking shears
and cut off the excess fabric from the raw edges
You can also use a product like Fray Check on the edges
or if you have an overlocker like I do, you can go over the raw edges
whatever method you've used to prevent fraying, this bit can now be attached to the dress
so to attach it to the dress, I lay it down underneath the dress, inside out
so with that ugly seam visible, with the fake hem part at the top
and the fixed up raw edges at the bottom
and then I slip this on over the top of the dress, like this
and I match up the bottom of the dress with the bottom of the linen material
Next, I pin everything in place
and then I simply sew the linen material onto the dress
all the way around the hem, like this
I've also set my needle, slightly to the left of centre
so that I will sew past the old hem that was on the dress
Then, and this is always my favourite part
I unfold it and
TA-DA!
This is what it looks like
Now, at first I thought that my sewing was really wonky
because the houndstooth pattern didn't exactly align up nicely with the edge
but then
I realized that the houndstooth was already really wonky along hem
oh well, there's nothing I can really do about that
Anyway, this isn't a huge issue and you can't really tell that it's a bit wonky
unless your face is like right next to the hem of the dress
It looks like fine from back here
so I'm going to go wrap this up
and I'm going to give it to my mum for Mother's Day
So I've wrapped up the present...
in Christmas paper
and now I'm giving it to my mum
Wooh!! *giggles*
Happy Mother's Day mum!
Mum: Oh why thank you my darling daughter
Oh Ella, why are you so excited all of a sudden?
whoa
Ella! Why are you going crazy?
A: so excited mum
Mum: Oh!
Did you take this out of my wardrobe?
A: *giggles* yes
Mum: Ohh wow!
That's excellent
'cus it was a little bit short
so can I try it on?
A: yeah
Mum: Okay
A: Yes Mum: I'll try it on
In fact, you have to
Mum: Okay A: You have to try it on for the video
Anyway, mum really liked the dress
she just wasn't able to wear it as a dress before
and as you can see, that extra length has really made a difference
Happy Mother's Day mum!
I also hope that this video has been helpful
now you know what you need to do if you need to lengthen something that's too short
and..
Alright, okay
okay this video is done
Thank you to all of my supporters on Patreon
who helped to make this video possible
To become my Patreon supporter
go to patreon.com/annikavictoria