How to Alter a Prom Dress (Cheap Bridesmaid Dress!) ~ Bonus: Easy Fairy Tu-Tu!

This used to be a full length strapless dress..with no bow in the back or shawl.

Rebekah was going to her first homeschool prom with Daddy as her ‘date’.

She didn’t want to go with a ‘boy’. :o)

One of the things I’ve gotten really good at, due to sheer lack of funds, over the years is altering prom dresses so that they are either more modest..or more stylish..or both. We’ve done this to make inexpensive bridesmaid's dresses and to make more modest dresses for proms, cotillions or father-daughter dances. Wow..what a help that was!  Considering that the normal bridesmaid or prom dress costs a good $200.00 minimum, this is an essential skill for cutting costs.

Rebekah altered an old prom dress to make her first square dance skirt.

Like mother..like daughter!

We have altered prom dresses for bridesmaid’s dresses (tea length) and square dances, or just took a thrift store ballroom gown and altered it for a party dress. My friends are all into this idea of saving money but still being able to come up with great party dresses. The average cost of a gown from a thrift store is around $20-30.  

Most of the time, the dress doesn’t fit..or it shows a little too much skin for a pre-teen..hence the need to alter the gown.  Why alter a thrifted purchased ballgown rather than sewing it yourself? It’s a huge savings of time and energy, plus you can get yards and yards of gorgeous designer fabric for only a few dollars a yard! Why not? 

The most common tricks I have for altering a prom dress are to cut off the length (making it tea length) and using the excess fabric to

• Cover the chest just a little bit more. (You can also tuck in a bit of organza.)
• Make wider straps instead of strapless or spaghetti straps
• To add a big bow in the back or front
• To make a shawl to cover their shoulders ~ Looks elegant and shows a bit less skin. :o)
• Make an inset panel to hide their back when all the dress has is criss-crossed spaghetti straps.

Now, Rebekah and I aren’t the only brainy mom-daughter teams to come up with such a great idea.  The Velardes and Rayberns have been doing the same thing for years. The girls all attended the prom mentioned above together. :o)

Just click on the photos to go to the Etsy shops by Glamtastik and Tirastutus. Gorgeous dresses!

So when Jeannie and her daughter Jessie asked to come over, I happened..to have just one evening available and hubby wasn’t home from Seattle yet, so I was lonely. In fact all the kids were off having a great time..so I squeezed in two hours with Jeannie, her daughter, and friend. :o)  They are so smart!  

Jessie and her friend and mom all got on ETSY and started looking at ideas for cute cotillion dresses.  They purchased a lovely black prom dress that was SUPER short but absolutely stunning!  Jessie wanted the bodice or corset look of the first dress and the multi-layered colors of tulle for a tutu.

First, they told me the dress needed to be longer and gave me some purple fabric for an ‘underskirt’. I suggested that we fold the purple rectangle into a triangle (twice) and cut out a waist, just like I demonstrate in my tutorial, “How to make a circle skirt without sewing.” We skipped the last step. Instead of cutting off the bottom edge into a curve, we left the points. 

All she has to do now is add a wee bit of elastic to tighten up the waist. It is knit fabric and slipped right over her head. We decided not to even bother hemming as it will be topped with so much tulle.

 

Then we cut the different colors of tulle into long strips. We draped the strips in the color order we wanted over a wide band of satin ribbon and then tied them in knots (so as not to make the waist to bulky).

Now, Jessie has a tie-on tulle multicolored tu-tu. It took only a very few minutes to do this! Super EASY!

 

The last part was altering the prom dress. We cut it off at hip length to give the ‘effect’ of a corset. It has a strong knit under fabric which I will hem with a tiny narrow hem. We decided to just have Mom hand tack the bottom edge of the sturdy black under shirt to the tulle skirt so it will stay down while dancing. No doubt a more permanent solution could be done, but they wanted the option to remove the tulle tu-tu and just use the purple skirt on occasion.

  

First we cut off about a 5” wide strip of both layers of the dress.  I made a 1/2” wide hem on the lower edge of the sheer fabric of the blouse/dress so that  it will just drape loosely. It didn’t look quite right tucked in or poofed (like a puff skirt) over the edge of the tu-tu.  

From the excess fabric that we cut off, I fashioned a ‘gathered’ shoulder strap to hand sew to the dress, just inside the original shoulder strap. Normally, I would remove the original straps, but they didn’t feel it was necessary. This is a lot quicker. I gather the lower edge of the fabric for the shoulder strap on both ends and then stitch it in place. You can baste it right in the middle of the strap to keep it bunched up or spread it out over the shoulders like Rebekah did at the top of this post.

Then we made a tulle flower of gold. I just cut a strip about five or six inches wide, folded it in half lengthwise,  and gathered it into a ruffle flower to put at Jesse’s shoulder. We added a center flower of pink just for a little added pizzaz.  While we were in the ‘designing phase’, I just gathered the ruffle with two safety pins. In a pinch this would work just fine. :o)

Well, I hope I’ve covered everything for those of you ladies out there who are brave and want to try this. Frankly, there wasn’t much sewing to it. Other than hemming the blouse, and hand stitching the straps on, that was about it. Mom tucked a little leftover purple in the front…which I thing is just fine.  Doesn’t Jesse look great? I know she is thrilled and I’m so glad I could help them out. I hope to do a lot more of this sort of thing for friends at church when I get caught up around here. 

As always, feel free to email me if you have any questions.

Laura's Royal Wedding Wednesday What To Wear Linky Party

Linking with My Romantic Home's Show and Tell Friday. 
and...

How to Hem Dress Pants… Including a Video!

The sewing bug has really bit me pretty badly this week! 

Sewing Machine Woes….

I’ve been working faithfully, as much as I can, on Mom’s couch cushion covers…but a gal can only stand so much of that sort of thing! The good thing is that it got me going again on my sewing. Sadly, my machine broke…and I guess  I’ve finally met my match…After all these years..I finally found a machine that I can’t fix.

Take my advice….

Don’t ever buy a EuroPro!  It turns out that they are notorious for broken bobbin casings…which happen to be made of plastic.
 

Of all things! My daughter picked it up from the repair shop so I that I could rescue my specialty feet out of the machine. But now I’m stumped. I can’t use the upholstery thread in Rebekah’s Singer because it gets all gummed up. It just can’t handle the thread. I may try machine quilting thread. At least that would be sturdier than the usual stuff.

Hemming Dress Pants

I also had to hem some dress pants for a friend and thought, while I’m at it, I might as well video it. I can’t tell you how much money I make hemming pants! This is so easy that I feel guilty getting paid to do it. I learned to do the hemming stitch in high school.  I do know that hemming dress clothes does intimidate some people. I’ve become rather well known for the quality of my repairing and alterations though I don’t quite know how it happened.  I fix things for people at church all the time…especially dress clothes. So I did a little of that today too. 

Here are the basic steps to hem stitch formal clothes:

(Note: Start with a color of thread that is as close to the color of the fabric as possible.)

1. 
   
   
   
   
   Unless you want to save the hem to let out later, first rip out the current hem and iron the legs straight. Zig-zag the raw edges or finish the edge with pinking shears.
2. 
   
   
   
   
   Put the pants on while wearing the shoes you will normally wear.
3. 
   
   
   
   
   Have a friend fold the cuffs up to the length you want and pin in place.
4. 
   
   
   
   
   Measure the fold all the way around and make sure it is the same length…all the way and re-pin. Turn pants inside out. Iron crease of hem.
5. 
   
   
   
   
   Thread needle and tie knot in the end.  Catch just a few threads of the fabric about a 1/4 above the raw edge of the hem on the inside of the leg. (I start at a seam so I can tell when I have gotten all the way around easier.)
6. 
   
   
   
   
   Then about a 1/4 inch further away, push your needle through the raw edge of the hem.
7. 
   
   
   
   
   Repeat catching just a few threads of the fabric above the raw edge of the hem. You do this so that nothing shows on the outside of the pant leg.
8. 
   
   
   
   
   Keep alternating catching stitches in the pant leg fabric and then pushing the needle through the raw edge of the hem, but don’t pull too hard or you will make a long pucker. 
9. 
   
   
   
   
   Every inch or so, tie a knot by going through a loop of thread just before the loop is gone. That way, if you catch a heel in your hem and rip it, you won’t undo all of your hard work. Keep stitching until you get back to where you started.

And I’m saving the best thing I did today…for tomorrow….a major re-do of my work table in the sewing room! Here is a link to the video.

And no…I didn’t spray paint it!!

(I know what some of you were thinking…Donna went crazy with a spray can. ) I have some self-respect—thank you!

How to Use a Ruffler Foot to Alter a Blouse

As you know, I posted a How To on duplicating store bought clothes by making your own pattern. One of the things I warn you about is using the same cloth to make the duplicate that was used for the original blouse.

The reason I mention this is that that was one of the mistakes I made in the learning process. I copied a knit blouse, but used a cotton plaid cloth. The hips were just a wee bit to snug and really, the whole blouse was just a bit too short.

The first thing I did when the blouse was short, was to rip out the lower seven inches of the side seams so I had 'walking room'. I hemmed the raw edges of both sides. You often do the same thing on the lower sides seams of a long skirt.

So far so good, but when I realized that it's shortness was driving me crazy, I decided to add a ruffle. All well and good but now I have a these flaps.

I needed a solid lower edge of the blouse to attach the ruffle to. So I decided to make what I call a "V-patch". I laid the side seam of the blouse out totally flat and spread the front and back flaps open in a "v" shape. Then I slipped a square patch of matching fabric underneath. I pinned the hemmed edges right on top and top-stitched through all layers. I folded the lower edge of the patch and hemmed it just the same as the blouse.

To add a ruffle to a blouse with a ruffler foot.

 

• First cut off a strip that is about 2 times longer than the actual width of the lower edge of the blouse.

•   Next hem the strip with a narrow hem.

• Then attach the ruffler foot to the machine. You have to loosen the screw and remove your original foot completely, attach the two fingers of the ruffler foot around the post and screw that normally holds a foot to the machine, but at the same time you have to hook the claw on the right side of the ruffler foot around the post that holds the needle in place. (It's the screw you loosen to remove and change the needle.)   Pictured first is the WRONG way to attach it.

(Wrong way) To the left, the two fingers  of the arm that attaches the foot to the machine is ready to grab the post and the screw and be tightened down. However the long claw arm is not in the right position. It needs to be hooked on to the post of the screw that you turn to loosen and allow the changing and removal of the needle on the upper right side of the sewing machine post.

(Right way.)Here, they are now both headed for the right position at the same time.This is a little tricky, but can be done!

HOW THE RUFFLER FOOT WORKS:  The ruffler foot won't work without the up down action of the post that holds the needle. That claw has to be in place. It loosely holds the post of the screw that you turn to remove the needle. When the needle goes up and down, this causes a little upper plate of the ruffler foot  to scoot forwards and backwards which pushes the cloth forward each time to make a pucker.  There is a lower plate and the two meet and pinch together. Your cloth needs to be inserted between the upper and lower thin metal plates of the foot and slid between the pinch. 

The cloth should not be directly in contact with your lower feed dogs and completely under the ruffler foot.  (Actually the reason for this, is that you could put another piece of cloth completely beneath the ruffler foot and it would allow you to make the ruffle and sew it to the blouse at the same time. This requires some practice so I'm just showing you how to make the ruffle by itself!)

• Once you have fed the ruffle strip in between the two thin plates of the ruffler foot, lower your presser foot.  It won't work if you don't do this.  (See Ruffler Foot Video Part 1) in previous post.

• Then you also want to decide where to set the little flat plate with the holes on the back of the ruffler foot. The hole furthest to the left allows you to sew with no ruffle action at all.  

( That way, after you have made the ruffle, rather than removing the foot and putting a regular foot on, you can just sew normally by putting the two pieces of cloth that you want to sew completely underneath the foot as if it wasn't a ruffler foot at all. If that was the case you would not slip anything between the two ruffle plates. Just put everything completely under the foot and against the feed dogs like normal.)

• Setting the pucker width.  The next hole has a 12 on it. That setting is for a very tight ruffle..like gathering. The next hole to the right is a 6. It gives you a pucker every half inch or so.  The hole furthest to the right #1 allows for a pucker every inch or so. It results in a gentle ruffle.

• Once you have inserted the cloth strip for the ruffle, and you have set your pucker spacing, and lowered the presser foot, all you have to do is step on the pedal and gently feed the cloth, keeping the raw edge straight while the ruffler foot grabs and tucks the cloth under the needle allowing it to sew the tucks in place.  (See Ruffler Video Part 2)
• Let the machine do the feeding..you just keep the cloth loose and available for the foot to pull on. Take it at a nice slow speed.  (See Ruffler Video Part 3) for close up view.

Now, to add the ruffle...

Rather than cut off the blouse hem and sew the ruffle to the blouse with the right sides together, I just laid the raw edge of the hemmed ruffle, just under the finished hem of the blouse, pinned it in place and top stitched it down too.

(This is the ruffler foot setting I used #6)

I did zig-zag the raw edges of the ruffle first to keep the cotton from unraveling.

(This is a tight gather using the #12 setting)

I really think it turned out to be a pretty cute blouse for someone with my figure and shape. I was afraid the ruffle would add too much to the hips, but in a way, it may have 'camouflaged' them instead. My sleeves should have been puffier to make this a really balanced design..I'm serious considering re-doing them too.

Ah well..the ups and downs of designing your own clothes! But hey, I like it just fine and I love the cute ruffle. Hubby likes it too, so I would say it passed muster! Don't you?