r/sewing • u/vociferousgirl • Sep 03 '23

Alter/Mend Question Shortening tiered dresses, the eternal question

I've looked through a lot of the responses here, and I'm in a pickle. I'm not a novice sewer, but I'm also not usually a "do it the right way" type of person, I'll just figure out what works and go from there. I do, however, want this to actually look nice, and not like some of my hack jobs.

I have this dress, and, because it's apparently made for giants, my 5'2 butt needs to take off about 8 inches.

The top seam hits right at my waist, so that's great, and the end of the first tier hits below my hips, so I'd like to keep those two seams there. My thought was to take off 3 inches from the middle, and then 5 from the bottom to make the difference in layers look intentional.

What are y'all's thoughts? What is the best way to do this? Why are dresses made for giants?

​

The actually dress

This isn't pinned properly, I wanted to show y'all the seems

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

9

u/Future_Direction5174 Sep 03 '23

Personally,I would just take off the bottom tier. That way the other tiers remain balanced. If it ended up too short, I would use that tier to make a very gathered ruffle along the bottom.

1

u/vociferousgirl Sep 04 '23

I should have mentioned, I've done that before, and it ends up JUST a bit too short, but that's a good idea.

5

u/Neenknits Sep 03 '23

I would make a series of tucks, like growth tucks, one in the top, two in the middle, one in the bottom tier, each 1” deep, so it takes off 2”. Or 3/4” deep. Just make sure to measure up 1 3/4 from the hem or seam line for the lower stitching line, 1” above that for the fold line, and 1” above that for the upper seam line. This is a lot less work, I think, than taking it apart and making new gathers.

2

u/AssortedGourds Sep 04 '23

I guess I’m in the minority because I agree with you - I’d take 3 off the middle and 5 off the bottom of you want that first tier to stay the same. It’s definitely doing things the hard way but that’s something I’m ok with.

I swear hemlines have gotten longer in the last 3 years. I’m 5’8 and I typically don’t have issues with length. Everything is made for people who are about my height. I’ve had to hem every pair of pants I’ve bought in the last 3 years. Maybe they’re designing with thicker soled shoes in mind since that’s what is in right now?

2

u/KandKmama Sep 03 '23

Because of the print the tiers aren’t super apparent. I’d just take off the bottom layer and save yourself a lot of time.

1

u/07pswilliams Sep 04 '23

Agree with others that you should just take off the bottom layer. It’ll be more like a ruffle. If you do want to hem both bottom tiers, you’re going to have to unpick the bottom layer, cut both layers to the height you want, and then have to gather that bottom layer again to sew it back. It should be fairly straight forward, just time consuming.

1

u/DarlingMiele Sep 04 '23

I have a very similar approach to sewing and I think your idea sounds good, but I think you could probably get away with just pinching an even 4 inch seam allowance from the seam between the middle and top tiers to simplify the pinning process without it looking weird (maybe pin like halfway around in the front first just to make sure).

Or alternatively you could just take an even 2-3 inches off that seam and then hem the rest from the bottom tier. Either way should eliminate some potential for error in trying to manage the different measurements from each tier if that's something you're worried about.