Thursday, January 9, 2014

KISS - add elastic

Sometimes you find an item for tweens that is just perfect for a twittle one, just too big.  No need to restyle it, just size it down.  

In the case of this adorable skirt, it just needs elastic in the waist.  Keep It Simple Stupid.  KISS.



Notice this skirt is twice the size I need (an 8 for an 8 year old)...though it fits her perfectly except for the waist.  That tells you a little about the length this would be on a tween wearing a size 16.....hmmm?  Oh well, I digress.  I'll be there soon enough so I'd better not throw stones now.


It had a nice flat waist to work with and I could have just threw some darts in the waist but I'd be popping them out in no time so best to go with elastic.

So I used the stitchpicker to open an existing seam to run the elastic through.


I also opened the seam beside the zipper, pulled it through and then stitched the opening back closed and cut the excess elastic away.  After I ran the elastic through, I decided to sew a line down each side to provide a channel for the elastic to sit in.  Otherwise it would have rode to the top of the waistband....not what I wanted.  It would have been so much easier to sew this channel on a flat panel waist instead of waiting to do it once the elastic was already in.....note to self for the future. Who am I kidding, I already knew that, but those who fail to plan, plan to fail.....or something like that.  Failure is not an option, I just roll with it.

Notice how thin the fabric is that I worked it through?  There is a lining in there that I could have gone inside but then I could see the elastic from the outside of the skirt.  I ran the elastic on the outside of the lining but on the inside of the waistband to solve that problem.  Another way to have done this would have been to use a random scrap of fabric and sew a channel to the inside of the waistband without ever opening up the seam.  Tomato, tomato....I saved fabric.


See, a quick 10 minute fix to an already great skirt...now to just convince her that she is not a teenager yet.  She already has the eye roll down pat.  I'll have to update with a photo when she wears it.




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