I think every seamstress can relate to me on this one... At one point in our lives, someone comes up to you with big eyes and hands you their 'favorite' garment or whatever and asks you to to fix it... pretty please! You look down and it's a disaster, the seams are frayed and the fabric is all ripped up like some rabid chihuahua thought it was lunch.
Just like one day in school, I was finished sewing and waiting for the bell... a girl timidly walked up to me and informed me that while trying to put her dress on after gym, her zipper broke and handed it to me asking if I could fix it... before looking at the dress I pointed to the bell saying, "You know we only have... 2 minuets left in the period... right?" (The dress was lined and it was an invisible zipper)
I can sew... I'm not magic.
So when someone wanted me to fix the sleeves of their jacket... I knew I was in for trouble...and boy was I ever.
As you see above, the jacket was well worn, but the woman insisted that it be fixed because it was the only one with big enough pockets (she is a surgical nurse). gah...
Since just cutting away the fabric seemed inappropriate in my sewing mind I decided to rip out the cuffs at the seams and just lengthen the cuff itself to make up for lost fabric. I did this by taking a soft green knit remnant and making it a tube the same size of the original cuff when it was unfolded, then I just gathered the sleeves after i cut away all the worn out fabric and sewed in a french seam since I did not have a serger at the time. TADA!
Then I took some of the extra fabric from the sleeves and made a patch for the back, resewed the buttons. Just little touch up things, I wanted her to be able to wear it for a while after I fixed it, I even offered to fix the buttons if she wanted, but it's just a work jacket she said. The total project took about two hours only because I don't have a seam ripper... so I was being really careful with an x-acto knife.
Overall I think she was very please with the finished result. (She payed me more than I expected) I'm glad that she got her jacket back though ^^ and I love finding an excuse to use french seams.
Lessons Learned:
Always set up an iron when you're sewing -.-
Buy a seam ripper.
NEVER try using a knit to patch.
Trim french-seams before if you are trying to save time. (Though I love the aesthetic appeal of having that very slight fuzzy line instead of a crisp and sharp seams.)
Thankyou for reading loves!
I hope that if you have a similar problem, this might help you; or if you want please contact me and we can see if I can fix up something of yours.
Peace and love,
Mariah
