There is a box, in the corner of my sewing room.
It is a box whose contents have not seen the light of day for many a month.
Many crafters will be familiar with this box, in all of its forms:
There’s the ever-growing amorphous lump that lies underneath your desk…
The monster underneath your bed… The stuff you vacuum-packed in a fit of organization
and stuffed into your garage in the hopes that you’d never have to deal with it again…
This, my friends, is the UNFINISHED SEWING PILE.
So, this is the item that I pulled out of the box and that I’m going to work on for
this episode. This is a really lovely strapless blue gingham
dress. The problem, however, is the strapless part.
When I attempt to wear it, it falls down! So, I want to add straps – more specifically,
tie-up halter-neck straps!
The first thing that I do is to measure roughly how wide I want the straps to be at the top
of the sweetheart neckline. I want them to be about 3 inches wide, and then taper off
and get thinner as the straps reach my shoulder. I want most of the strap to only be 1.5 inches
wide. And I also need excess length at the back so that the straps can be tied up, and
the straps should also curve a little bit so that they will sit flat around my neck.
Awesome. So, I put all that down onto a piece of newspaper and here’s my pattern!
The fabric that I’m using for the straps is stretchy white jersey.
I fold it over so that there is two layers, so that I can cut out 2 matching pieces at once.
I place my pattern onto the fabric, pin it on, and cut around the paper.
Then, I flip the pattern over and I repeat this.
So, I’ve ended up with 4 pieces of fabric, each pair sandwiched together like this. And,
I’m going to then sew them together just like this. I’m making sure that I leave
a gap in my stitching at both the top and the bottom.
To sew them together, I’m using a zig-zag stitch because I’m working with stretchy
fabric. I’m also using a walking foot attachment to help the seam lay flat.
After I’ve sewn the two pieces together, it gives me this tube thing. So I stick a
safety pin in one end of the tube to help me turn it inside out, and I turn the tube
all the way around, so that the seams are now on the inside of the tube.
Then, I simply sew the gaps closed by sewing over the top of them.
For this smaller end,that I left completely open, I fold the excessfabric inside it about half an inch and then
sew over the top.
Once I’ve done that, I attach the straps to the dress where I want them to sit, pin
them on, and sew carefully over the top here, using a really small straight stitch.
Then, I also decide that I want to replace the buttons with something a little bit cuter.
Now, I have a LOT of cute buttons, and it’s honestly really hard making a choice, but
in the end I go for something a bit more subtle than cat or heart buttons – I got these
white buttons are from my grandma, and I think that they’ll give the dress a more vintage, pin-up feel.
I carefully cut off the old buttons, and, using a needle and a thread in matching colour
to the buttons, I sew the buttons on, using the small holes left in the fabric from the
buttons I just removed to know where to place these new ones.
To sew these buttons on, I sew up through the back of the dress through one hole of
the button and back down through the other hole.
I repeat this a couple of times,
then, with the thread at the back of the dress I tie a knot, and cut off the excess thread.
And here is my new and improved dress! I think that the new halter straps go really
well with the dress and it also has the added bonus of not falling off when I try to wear
it! So, that’s good! Here’s the tie-up straps in action – 10
inches extra seemed to be about the perfect length to allow me to tie a messy bow at the back.
And - yeah! There we have it! Thanks for watching,
and I’ll see you all next time!