Let me start this final October Progress Report by emphasizing how grateful that I opted to reimplement the online appointment scheduling system again. It is not a perfect solution, but it has helped reduce the stress of overbooking. I wanted to be a little more organized. The side result is that it has yielded more customers.
Unfortunately, I have lost some customers due to the limited number of evening appointments. I you absolutely need an evening appointment, contact me directly. There are some nights I can open appointments. On the other hand, I have also gained customers because it is easy. One day, I hope to have it so that all pictures are submitted during the appointment scheduling process, but that is not in the books for a few months.
I want to remind everyone that you do not expect a dry cleaner or other service rendering storefront to be on-call 24/7, the same courtesy should be extended to those of us working out of our homes. There has to be a clear start and end point to our workday. Hours of operation are posted in a physical storefront. I have posted hours of operation on this website. I try to follow them as closely as possible, but I am only one person, and life gets in the way.
Please be patient if I do not answer the phone or respond to messages after a certain hour or on weekends. The same for holidays. I have a life outside of providing sewing and alteration services.
I do make appointment exceptions for as many people as possible, but the customer must also decide how important it is to them and make it a priority; waiting until the last minute becomes stressful. Plan! Take a longer lunch one day if needed. My appointments do not take that long.
If you schedule an appointment, or even if you just tell me you are on your way, please show up as advertised. Show up for your appointment promptly. I do have an appointment buffer, but not if you are 45 minutes late. If you say you will be here in 5 minutes, it should not take you 30 minutes to get here. Be respectful of my time; I am doing you a service, not the other way around.
Now, let us get to the part of this post you are actually here for…the projects and work being done.
Dress Alterations
This lightweight black denim dress fit, the customer well across the shoulders, but there was too much fullness around the waist that she also wanted to reduce all the way to the hemline. She is very petite. The problem with this type of alteration on dresses without openings, such as zippers or buttons, is that you must allow enough wearing ease to get the garment on and off. You can take in, but you cannot take in too much.
This lovely dress had no openings except for the neckline, hemline, and armholes. The ties at the bottom of the front v-neck opening were for decor purposes only, not to functionally close the opening.
As stated in the introduction to this project, when making alterations to A-line style garments without additional openings, it is essential to remember that wearing ease cannot be removed. Bagginess can be minimized, but there must be some ease to allow the wearer to get in and out of the garment. Even with petite wearers, the shoulder blades only move in certain directions and can only be scrunched in so far.
When trying to get the pinned garment onto the dress form, I was reminded very quickly to allow room for the shoulders. In this case, the garment’s neck opening is not large enough to pull the dress over the hips; thus, the only option is to pull the garment over the shoulders. That being said, even at the smallest setting, my dress form was too big for the dress to fit in its pinned configuration.
The amount marked for take-in on the back of the garment was significant and I decided to break this out into multiple darts at the back waist. The amount of fullness removed at the hemline was several inches, divided across both side seams. The original hemline was opened up to allow for a smooth transition once the excess fullness was removed from the skirt.
I decided this particular customer would need to come back for a second fitting after the initial alterations were made to verify that they could, in fact, get in and out of the garment by themselves and without discomfort. For basic alterations like these, I do not always need a second fitting, but it was warranted in this case.
After the fitting, I reduced the depth on one of the darts on both sides of the dress back to give the customer a little more room to get the dress on and off over her shoulders with ease.
Other things can be done to reduce the bagginess of the dress and still allow the wearer to get in and out of it. In this particular case, I could have inserted a zipper in the center back seam. This is not what the customer wanted, and it would have additional costs for both time and materials (zipper). It is an option, but not every customer wants a zipper.
This dress was a delight to work on. I do have to be careful when I am working on these light weight dark colored denims. They tend to have white fibers running in one direction. These can be a migraine trigger for me. I have to pace myself when working on this type of material. Overall, they are nice to work with, but the darker coloring with the particular fabric weave can cause issues.
I love the more tapered dress that resulted from this alteration. I do have to confess that resetting those pockets was a bear because of the way they were originally installed in the initial dress construction. There was nothing wrong with this method; it just made it difficult to get them back in like the original. Alterationists need to understand basic apparel construction when performing alterations, as well as industry (commercial) sewing techniques. This allows optimal flexibility and more professional results.
Romper Hems
This was a pretty straight forward alteration for Stacey Sansom Designs. It is a simple length adjustment. In this case, it was shortening the romper by about 4 inches. This romper was constructed from a knitted fabric; the original hem was cover-stitched. The final and shortened hemline was also cover-stitched. When completing alterations that impact the hemline of the garment, I replicate the original hems whenever possible. This helps maintain the design integrity, the overall look and feel of the garment as intended and purchased.
Patch Sewing Services
Most months render some sort of patch sewing services. I do not mind doing the patches. It is fairly quick work, even when working with large batches of uniforms. Most batches are small; a handful of uniforms. Larger batches come when testing occurs several times a year.
No job is too big or small if you run a local company with patches. Contact me to see what kind of arrangements we can work out because frequent and recurrent patch services are deeply discounted.
As a side note, if you are in the DFW area and are searching for a local martial arts facility to train at (yourself, spouse, or children), make sure you check out Talon Martial Arts 380, Frontier Martial Arts (formerly known as Talon 377), and numerous DFW area Lifetime Fitness martial arts classes.
Romper Repairs and Hems
Sometimes things happen to garments and we find ourselves in a quandary, fix it or replace it. In this case, the garment was fixable, but it would not be completely invisible. There are ways to complete this so that it looks uniform and intentional. I only do this if the customer wants to spend extra (pay for time) to complete the additional changes. This customer decided it would be hidden enough to only fix the problem area without making it look like an intentional design feature.
This romper needed a sizable repair fixed in the sleeveless armscye and the hems done. A previous attempt had been made to cut the hems off by the customer. The repair on the rip is not perfect, but sometimes we can only do the best that we can. You can only do so much with what you have.
Sometimes rips and tears can be a challenge, but fixing them can extend the life of a garment. Or breathe new life into one. For this romper, I used a portion of the pants leg that was removed to shorten the romper as the patch for the rip. This is not a perfect hide of the problem, but it blends in decently due to the location on the body.
In this case, the customer had attempted to hem the pants on their own. This “fix” can get tricky for the seamstress that cleans up the mess. In some cases, it may even cost you more money than the original hemming would have taken. For this particular romper, I had to straighten the bottom of the legs before I could do the actual hem. That is considered a repair and is typically charged by the hour. If you know you don’t have the skills to do a simple hem, call someone who does.
Vest Alterations
This beautiful micro-suede vest came in with a request to take in the armscye. The customer felt that it was revealing too much of her bra and side bust area. She wanted to wear it as the top instead of wearing a shirt under it. On a ready-to-wear vest, this can be a tricky alteration. This was originally designed to be worn as an over-vest. You can only do so much to alter where there is no additional fabric to add the needed coverage.
Fortunately, the garment was large enough that a couple of alterations were needed and these would take care of the job. I needed to take in the armscye near the bust a considerable amount to remove the gaping. This vest had princess seams, so adjusting these would help remove the problems there.
The customer was petite, but busty. My dress form is not as busty as the client, so there is a bit of gaping that was not present on the customer.
The preliminary completion of the alterations along the princess seams revealed changes in the gaping from the originally pinned garment. Having before pictures helps me to identify problems that result from the alteration. This is not a reason for concern; you adjust those spots to fit appropriately.
In this case, the gaping was on the front neckline. These were present in the original pinned garment, but these were in different places. The customer was called back for an additional fitting, and further adjustments were made.
Ongoing October Progress Report
This October Progress Report was not an all inclusive post on alterations, repairs, or patch sewing services performed by Stacey Sansom at Stacey Sansom Designs, during the last half of October; however, it does illustrate the range of work completed.
If you need services, please reach out or schedule an appointment. Note that as we approach the holidays, appointments will become more limited. Even small business owners deserve to spend time with family and enjoy the holiday activities. Please always be mindful of this and non-emergent work. If you can wait until after the holidays, please do. If you cannot, then please plan accordingly and schedule with ample time to complete your projects.
Stacey Sansom Designs will be closed for the entirety of Thanksgiving week and the last half of December.