Alteration Success

An important part of getting great alterations is to arrive at your fitting session prepared, because no matter how skilled your seamstress may be, those skills won't be enough if certain other issues are neglected. Following are a few suggestions that will guarantee you getting the best possible start with your alteration project.

For length adjustments, and this goes for women and men, bring the shoes that you're most likely to wear with the garment. This is most important for any kind of jeans or slacks, but it will also give you a better perspective on the length of a skirt or dress.

Fitting formal wear will get you better results if you show up in or bring the same undergarments that you'll be wearing at the actual event. This is important any time, but becomes absolutely essential for any type of strapless garment because a different style of bra can make your dress or top fit quite differently.

Here's one especially for the guys: if you need to have jacket sleeves altered, do wear or bring a dress shirt. It's the only way to ensure that your sleeves will be the perfect length, i.e. with just the right amount of shirtsleeve showing.

And finally, another vital bit of information: many fabrics shrink during their first washing and/or drying cycle. Therefore I strongly recommend that the garment is preshrunk in some way prior to alteration. Just do what you will be doing to it once it has been worn. If you are planning to wash it and dry it in the dryer, do so. If you are just washing and line drying, I suggest doing that. Even dry cleaning may result in some shrinkage due to chemical moisture and steam pressing, which suggests having the garment go through the process once to make sure it won't shrink later.

Not all fabrics shrink. A quick look at your garment label will tell you whether you should take these extra precautions. The fabrics with the most shrinkage overall are rayon, linen, cotton, wool or a combination thereof. If your fabric has 60% or more polyester mixed in, it will tend to be a lot more stable.

I hope this information will be useful to anyone interested in getting quality alterations. If you have any questions just send me an email.

Repair or replace?

The last few months have brought me more clients than ever before looking to repair their clothing or other items-no doubt a symptom of the financially stressed times many of us are going through right now.

I try to give my customers sensible advice on this subject because I do not want them to spend good money on something that's best thrown out. Therefore I tell them this: if it's a treasured piece of clothing that was very expensive initially, or if it's that great item that goes with everything and is his or her favorite, or if it's a priceless family heirloom, by all means let's repair it, regardless of the cost.

But if it's your kid's old play jeans, or the T-shirt that you bought at a concert in 1972 and that now has twentytwo holes in it, or your husband's slacks that you can read a newspaper through they're that worn, forget it! You can replace all of these items (well, maybe not the T-shirt), for very little money at your local thrift shop or for just a bit more during the annual blow-out sale at a department store. So, when I get one of these hopeless cases, my client and I take it out to the parking lot where we set the cherished item on fire.....

Just kidding. But you get the idea.

Welcome!

Greetings and welcome to my blog.

As outlined in my profile, I am a seamstress, fabric artist and part-time writer. I work with clothing and fabrics on a daily basis which has provided me with many years of sewing-related experience. I am also a strong believer in quality, and therefore have a lot of opinions on the disappearance of well-made American merchandise, be it clothing, fabric or any other product. The outsourcing of nearly everything sold in this country today, especially apparel of all kinds, is appalling. I want businesses in America to be successful again which will be greatly helped when people rediscover that they have other options besides buying cheap stuff that falls apart after three times of using it.

I will do my best to make them see that paying a bit more initially will be the better move in the long run.

Shoppers visiting my website www.seamstoyou.com will find that here they are able to buy quality apparel and accessories backed by a strong guarantee---I promise items sold by me to be free of any construction flaws. I doubt that there are many clothing companies around today that can offer the same.

This blog will serve as an outlet to share some of my thoughts on everything related to fashion, apparel and accessories with anyone who is interested in reading them. And, as I said earlier, I am also a writer, so don't be surprised to find the occasional bit on writing-related issues.

I look forward to making this blog a regular part of my life.

Thank you for visiting today!