Monday morning mending- Tutorial on v-neck dress alteration

Okay, it's really Sunday. ... too bad.

I have a couple of dresses (poly/spandex ) from one of the big box warehouse stores. I really like them, but they never fit quite right. I've lived with them because they have no separate sleeve pieces, so taking them up at the shoulder meant the arm hole would get smaller-- and area where honestly I need MORE room.

Then it occured to me, (ta da! ) that I didn't have to keep the line of the dress exactly the same. I could alter the neckline shape and take height out of the shoulder, without sacrificing arm space.

In case you have a similar dress-- this might help someone.

Here's the dress in question: Notice that the top is a little loose, caused by being to short!

Here's the dress laying flat.

The idea was to take up the neckline, without altering the armhole. The red line indicates the alteration. This leaves all the arm space, while helping the front and back fit better.

Before makeing the new seam, I needed to remove the "finished" hem from the arm and neck opening, where the new seam would meet. I did this using a needle, then a seam ripper. The edges were just a coverstitch with folded under and stitched, I did not remove the coverstitching.

Now, I took more fabric from the front than the back. After playing around with different pinnings, this provided the best option.

Then I took the seam up on each side. My serger happens to be under the weather, so I used a stretch zig zag, trimmed that close, and did another row of stretch straigh stitching. Then I restitched the hem edge back using brown top thread.

A quick, needed improvement which makes the dress a better wear for church and work.

MaryKay is slowly trying to dig herself out from under a mountain if fabric, one tutorial at a time.