Seams And Scissors

How to Make It Fit from Feather’s Flights

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Congratulations to Stephanie Wilt for winning our last #CustomFit Blog Post! We’re continuing our #CustomFit series with a guest blog post from one of our favorite designers and sewists, Heather from Feather’s Flight. She is enormously talented and is going through how she altered an existing shirt to fit her body type.

Hey! I’m Heather from Feather’s Flights where I blog about sewing for my kids and for myself. I just love sewing.
This summer I found a really cute chambray shirt for $1 at a yard sale. I didn’t try it on and just assumed it would fit me. It did fit, but it fit weird. The neckline was too high or too closed or something. And the sleeve hems were too tight. I was sad that it didn’t fit, but I decided to add some fabric to the shoulders and sleeves. I added a cute pink lace fabric to give it a fun detail.
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1. Decide where you’re going to cut the shirt. Measure the length and add hem allowance. Decide on the width you want and add seam allowance.

2. Cut out the panels of fabric. Hem the short ends of the fabric.

3. Sew the panels into the shirt.

4. Finish the edges.

5. Tack the seam allowances down at the edges.

Tips for success

-Use similar weights of fabric. If using knit make sure the stretch of the shirt and the stretch of the panel is the same.

-Make sure you hem the fabric before sewing it in, so there’s a finished edge on the panel.

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Here are some other ideas for letting clothes out. Add fabric to the center front and center back. If you don’t want to change the details on the front neckline, add fabric to the shoulders, sleeves, and sides of the shirt. Another simple idea is to just add fabric to the sides and under sides of the sleeve. There’s a great tutorial adding fabric to the side of a shirt.

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Thank you, Heather! We love this creative way of expanding a top to fit, especially after going over pattern grading. Make sure to check out Heather’s inspiring blog, Feather’s Flights for more ideas!

What would our #CustomFit series be without a little prize? To enter to win a copy of the very popular, Sewing Vintage Modern from BurdaStyle please leave a comment telling us,

What is better, making a piece of clothing from scratch or refashioning an existing one?

Sewing Vintage ModernOFFICIAL RULES FOR DAILY CONTEST:
There is a maximum of one entry per person. The entry will be based upon a comment left on this blog post. Duplicate comments will be deleted and are not tallied.
Winner will be selected at random from the comments on this blog post.
Winner will be announced here on the blog December 29 as well as contacted by the email address provided.
#CustomFitYou have until December 25th, 2014 at 11:59p EST to leave your comment on the project above. Comments posted after that will not be counted.
Contest open to anyone 18+ in US and/or Canada.

#CustomFit Forecast: The next topic of conversation will be…. December 26th!

 

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