Monday, June 28, 2010

bubble hem dress


i've been wanting to hem this h&m dress for a while now, just to make it a little shorter, but then i decided i would like it better if i did something more interesting with it. then i though, since it was so simple to do, and requires minimal sewing skills, i would make a "how to" 

things you need:

step 1:
measure (on another dress/skirt, or have a friend help) how long you want the shortest part of the finished garment to be, and then mark this on the inside with a pencil or chalk

my shortest point was 19

















then decide what you want the longest point to be - i did another 3 inches, so mine was 22


decide now where you want the bubbles to be - my choice was made easy because this dress has an even number of hems joining its panels together. if yours doesn't, an easy way to get even spread is to fold the skirt part 4 times in half, and mark each divide, vertically

step 2:
on each horizontal mark, sew a simple loose tack with a double thread, leaving tails on each side for easy removal later.

(this isn't vital, but sure makes the next step a lot easier!)











the back of the tack (on the right side of the dress) should look like this: 














step 3:
now that all the points are marked, fold the hem up at each one so the tack is on the fold:
pin the hem at the top as you go

(now is a good time to see how your dress/ skirt looks and make any adjustments. i didn't take a photo at this point, but if you hold it up with all the pins in, you can see what it will look like finished)

step 4:
hand-sew each pinned part with 4 or 5 stitches
i actually just sewed each point to the hem, but if your thread matches your dress/skirt well enough, it won't matter if your stitches go through to the front, especially if they are small





step 5:
cut out all the marking tacks from earlier
(if you sewed them loosely enough, you might even be able to just pull them out)












step 6:
turn right side out, style, and wear!


♥♥♥

3 comments:

  1. love the simplicity of it. v. effective x

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  2. Love this, so much more fun :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. yay! it turned out lovely and i like how very precise you where. i'm inspired to try this on a skirt again!

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