How to Make an Alteration to a Lined Dress
As most people know, alterations can greatly change the way clothing looks. With the knowledge of how to do easy alterations, you may be able to save yourself some money by not having to go and spend lots of money at a professional tailor. You may think that because there is an extra layer of fabric that altering a lined dress is a difficult task. But here are some steps to help you.
- Put that dress on and mark where you want the new hem to be. You can use safety pins to mark the dress. You will have to have someone to assist you to ensure accuracy.
- Take the dress off and use caution so that the safety pins do not fall off.
- Using a steam iron, you want to press the new hem into place. Of course, do not iron the safety pins.
- Turn the dress inside out, and cut the pieces of thread with a pair of scissors to separate the dress lining. Using clothing chalk, make marks where the threads are located on the dress so that you will know the proper area when it comes to re-sewing the lining.
- You want to cut the fabric and leave about 1 1/2 inches of fabric. It is important that you also do the same step for the dress lining as well.
- Take a seam ripper and tear the seam of the dress. Then hand-sew the stitching. When altering the dress, the best hint is to use a catch stitch as a stitching method.
- Make sure the lining of the dress is even with the new dress seam. Utilizing your thread guides, reattach the dress lining.