5 Alteration Hacks That Will Make Your Sewing Life Easier!

hey guys welcome to downtown tailoring today i'm gonna make your life easier i'm gonna give you some tricks hacks and techniques that you can use while doing your alteration to make everything in an easier way so let's go we are going to use our domestic machine for my first trick as we are going to sew jeans i recommend to use a size 16 needle even an 18 if you can find it is much better but this is the one i have so we will use this one i've read a lot of comment of people having difficulty sewing jeans in their domestic machine so we are going to tackle that so i'm gonna change my needle in my machine a lot of people think that we need a fancy machine to sew but not really this technology is so old that any machine will do of course there are some machines that are more comfortable than others of course but don't limit yourself i'm threading my machine i just using a jeans thread you know just to let you know and then remember that you have to raise the tension when you are working in jeans thread i am making the length of the stitch the longer that we can and here you go so for our trick we are going to use a button yes a button and try to use one as flat as you can you know this one you see is not that flat it's a little bit convex so the flat will work better for the trick that we are going to use so if i have my jeans here and i'm going to do a hem i'm using this one because it's a little bit thinner and this part is not so thick so you see what i'm doing i'm putting my button underneath the foot so it's more or less the same size and then i can just sew that's it yes that's the trick let me show you again so when you go to the edge before you go to the thick part you lift your pedal put your button and then keep sewing that will make your life so easy that you always think about me each time that you sew jeans so that's the final part and put in my jeans and my hem is done you see guys we can just maximize the tool we have to make our life easier my next trick is about pockets when you wanna take inside but you have the pockets in the way you know what we usually will do we will just take in then remove the pocket and move it back and that really is very time consuming but i will show you a trick that i learned sewing african clothes i am in a multicultural city and people go home and then they bring their clothes that they buy there and i see how every culture make their clothes and i learned by watching the african close this trick i already marked my pins and i'm going to take insides and look at that when i get to the point where the pocket is what i'm gonna do i will just peep out my material and then i will keep sewing in the pocket and then sewing back until the point pivot again and keep sewing and what i'm doing is just make part of the pocket the part that was the size before you see it's so easy that you cannot even believe it right so this is a nice hack that you can use when you don't want to remove the pocket and do all those kind of things of course if you move the pockets it will be a better job but you know not always you have the time or the customer have the money to do that and the results are fantastic now to clean you see how i do i do a kind of easy to search curve and then i will just go and search everything all around and i will search the other part and i will repeat the same at the other side of my blouse and here you go you see it's all done it looks slim nice it's still flare but with the shape of the customer and i want to show you the pocket how it looks is completely invisible is all the same you can just put everything in the pocket and use it the way you will use it before this is not exactly an alteration trick this is a custom-made silk skirt that i did it's called bias it's like a circular and what i wanted to let you know or remind you is that the bias code is very tricky it sometimes loosen up and the length might change so what i do i do the skirt almost basically finished and let it hang it for a few days before i do my hem so some days has passed and now i am measuring everything and making sure that is all good like at the same length all the way around that's really really important when you are working with bias after that that i mark you know the different places i will record everything be careful to keep the nice curve for the hem and then i will just do my hem so i will use my silk thread that was provided to me by my customer for her skirt and i can tell you that this thread is fantastic i really love to sew with it you can feel like the difference like the elasticity of the thread is different and do you know that i'm using my bun roll to do a nice sleek narrow hem and here we go this is the result this is uh my skirt and it's really beautiful i forgot to show that this is a wrap skirt and the straps on the top you know finish the wrap it's very beautiful this next hack is one that i actually came up with when i had a customer who really wanted to wear a dress with this problem the neckline with this dress is a little bit too big i painted to know how much she needed but as you can see the neckline looks a little bit saggy or loose and we are going to shorten the straps as well but this is not part of the trick so when you have that problem you have many ways to do it the first one we already discussed it in another video you can use a little bit of elastic and sew it with the under stitch inside and that will gather a little bit the material and that might make it better but in the case of this dress this dress is too thin and the elastic won't look good another option is to take one needle threaded and then you go and do like a three or four stitch and then you pull a little bit the material go back and then keep doing it this is a good solution but it's not as permanent so what we are going to do we are going to open everything as you can see i got every two or three stitches and you can use as well the razor and take the thread pulling from there but i'm too coward to do that with this material so i'm using my seam ripper and then i will go inside the dress and open the lining usually the dress are lined the whole thing but this one is just lined the torso part the skirt is not lined so that's why i'm opening the lining from the waist as you can see and then i can go in and pull my material out you see after i open enough and then remember the stitches that i open like every two or three stitches before now i can go from this side and just pull the whole thread and my under stitch will be removed and then after that now i can separate the lining from the dress sometimes to work with a blind dress can be delicate but truly is easier than it seems i'm opening my whole neckline and with this you have to be so careful because you don't want to pull the material at all because you don't want the material to lose the shape so now that i have everything open now i will mark i fold the lining in the center and then i will go to the sides to find the center between the sides and when i found it i will mark it with my shock and these are the points where i'm gonna make my darts so these are like a baby darts very small because i don't know if you remember the pin it wasn't like really that much that she needed it's just that it makes the difference so i did my first baby dart and now i'm gonna make my other baby dart at the other side the same distance and the same size here you go they are both done and now what i'm gonna do i will set the length of the stitch to the maximum and then i will go and reduce the tension in my machine that way i can make one stitch on my top of the dress after i do my this stitch i will pull the thread a little bit to gather the material you know in spanish there is a word for what i'm gonna do for this gathering i really have looked it up and in english is gathering but in spanish you said gathering more like for ruffles and for that you have another word that is embedded but i cannot find this word in english and if somebody find that words please let me know please because it's not like exactly stay stitch i really wouldn't know what to say so now that my material is a little gathered not gathered with ruffles or pleats i'm painting my two materials together for sewing and then i will set the machine back to the original setting and then i will make sure that when i'm sewing it it doesn't present itself together that's very important because you want it to look flat this is the trick of this job and then when i do that i will do my stay stitch you know that i have to go through the lining in put the two material together and then i will do my stay stitch you see you have to go like a little bit if you open the lining more then you work better but then when you have to close it you have to close more so you know so this is done and now my next step is to iron the material tried to remove everything that could look like a plate or gather and here you go guys this is the result as you can see it looks flat even though i gather it a little bit and it's like strong when you pull it as you can see the one before it feels more saggy and loose on our last hack or i guess alteration technique i wanted to let you know that you can work with the front crotch when there is no zipper you see this band it looks horrible at the front right and uh let me show you if we put the pins what they can look like now we spin as you can see i paint the seat i paint the u and i paint the thigh these represent the u how much i will take to the u and this represent how much i take to the thigh and these are the pins they are all marked as you can see this is the u so the ui will take it at the end here and then this one is the thigh that will take in the side so i didn't want it to complicate but i mark as well the back crotch because we have to take the front crotch at the back crotch at the same time because these stands are like the shape is not really the best let me show you what i mean when you do a pattern for a crotch you make two perpendicular lines and then you mark two inches and two inches and then you do a curve from the two inches to the other two inches and this is the way the curve of the front cross should be look at this one doesn't look at all the same right so this is what i have to take from the u so i will mark it in my pants and then i will make the straight line and then i can now do my curve and of course i have my pins as a reference and i do a decent curve and then this is what i have to take from the thigh and then i will mark it in the leg of the pants and then i will just soften off my line to go to zero this is the back that is already marked what i'm gonna do i will open now this cross with the crotch because uh the u crotch is the last thing you saw so you have to start from the leg so i will take in first the leg and then the u this is why i have to open this part so i can work comfortably so now i'm prepared to take in my thigh and then i'll go like that take my first time i have to open just a tiny bit more and then i can take the other one i finish opening so i can take the whole thing at the front and now i can take the other leg too now that my two legs are sewn now i'm sewing the u and i have everything done now i will cut the excess of material in my curve so my curve lays good but i am leaving a little bit just in case i took too much and i have to let out i always think in the redo always always and here you go guys this is the result as you can see it's completely different looks like another pants and you know that happened when people have a little bit of the belly you know how it is no and you know guys you know that's that i have a question actually yes so can you do this if you have a zipper oh wow that wouldn't be a hack that would be a job and a huge one hey guys that was all for today i hope that you like this video if there is one of those things that you like the most please let me know and don't forget to subscribe share like thank you bye

Channel: Downtown Tailoring

Views: 153,714

Rating: 4.9357166 out of 5

Keywords: sewing hacks, alterations hacks, how to sew thick material, how to sew jean material, how to sew thick denim, hacks for alterations, alterations for beginners, advanced alterations, downtown tailoring, how to take in the sides with pockets, how to fix a stretched collar, how to fix a loose saggy collar, how to hem a circle skirt on a bias, hemming with bias, how to take in crotch in front, how to fix front crotch of pants, crotch alterations

Id: TUrE8244Cxo

Length: 15min 27sec (927 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 20 2021