Not linking this post to social media, lol, since part of the deal of doing favors is that NO ONE ELSE hears about it....
Anyway, I had a friend who had some bibbed insulated outerwear pants that were just a little too short in the torso. She's a tiny lady, and I'm not sure what size range these pants actually are, but she gave them to me last spring asking if I could add a bit to the shoulder straps so she had a bit more wearing ease.
I figured I would just add length to the adjustable strap so it would have more room but I wasn't in a hurry...after all, we were heading into summer, this is Alabama...in my midwest-raised brain, these were pants to be worn on a snow day. I told her I would do them the next time I had black thread in the machine.
Which was, of course, the MOTG lace dress. Got past the wedding, didn't sew anything because I had a mess to clean up.
The day before I left to go to Florida, she texted me wanting to know if her pants were done yet. It was going to be a bit chilly (read: lower 50's - upper 40's) for the fall festival outing at the local corn maze and she wanted to wear them.
Never occurred to me that someone would want to wear snow pants with the temps above freezing. The midwest is still strong in me at times, even after 40+ years in the South...
Well, I clearly couldn't do them before we left, so I told her it would be the first thing I did when we got back.
Looked at them Sunday night...literally the day we got home...and realized it wasn't going to be as easy as I thought. The adjustable straps were sewn in a loop around the buckle, like a bra strap. I couldn't do the modification the way I thought. I couldn't recreate that loop if I took it apart; no way my sewing machine could get in that tight spot to sew the end down.
What to do what to do what to do...
Wednesday it hit me...what if I lengthened the other side? Where the buckle comes up from the front?
Took a look and that was just a simple loop. So I got some black grosgrain ribbon on the way home from work Thursday, and yesterday it took me all of about 20 minutes to add 4" to the front of those straps.
She had told me she didn't care what it looked like; but I don't think this looks too bad....
Next up: Christmas stocking for the three people who were added to the family this year...gonna hafta get creative for those, too...
Nicely done!
ReplyDeleteGreat alteration! I have often had to pinch hit like you just did with your alterations. Some repairs would kill my machine if I tried to replicated factory efforts. I think as long as the client knows, you are good. I've never had it be a problem. You did a great and creative job.
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