Do you love thrifting but struggle to find items that fit your body properly?
Frustrated with closet staples that don't give you the right fit?
Fed up with the clothing shopping experience when garments never seem to fit quite right?
Transform your wardrobe through tailoring in this 6-week comprehensive course. Every week covers an essential tailoring technique using live visual instruction from an expert, followed by hands-on practice altering real garments with direct teacher support throughout the process.
Revitalize the clothing pieces already hanging in your wardrobe!
What You'll Need to Know First: Prior experience with Sewing Basics or similar foundational knowledge is required
During these 6 weeks, you'll gain expertise in maintaining proper garment proportions, creating seamless transitions between seams, managing layered seam construction, incorporating darts into previously plain garments, perfecting various hemming approaches, adjusting armhole fit, and much more. Throughout the course, you'll work with both woven and stretchy knit materials.
Our studio supplies all machines, tools, thread, and workspace you'll need, and instructor Anastasia will provide comprehensive support and direction throughout every lesson. Simply bring practice garments (you can thrift a complete collection of pieces for about five dollars) and an eagerness to learn.
We offer a core set of fundamental alteration techniques that benefit everyone, but if you have specialized skills you want to develop, let us know, and we'll work to incorporate them. Below are commonly requested alterations we can teach, though we're happy to explore other techniques as well.
- Reducing seam width to make garments smaller
- Widening seams to increase garment size
- Inserting standard darts
- Inserting decorative fisheye darts
- Applying bias binding to edges
- Hemming jeans while preserving the original edge
- Three different hemming techniques for knit materials
- Hidden hemstitch application
- Narrow rolled hem finish
- Standard folded hem
- Hemming various items: pants, skirts, dresses, jackets, and more
- Hemming jacket and dress linings
- Lengthening garments by adding a decorative ruffle or trim
- Increasing skirt waist size through waistline adjustment
- Enlarging shirt capacity with strategic fabric additions
- Reducing sleeve length
- Customizing dresses for a perfect fit
- Adjusting jacket dimensions
- Slimming pant legs
- Adjusting waistband sizing
- Shortening or cropping tops and outerwear
- Redesigning necklines
- Tightening shoulder seams
- Modifying waist measurements
- Raising shoulder placement in fitted garments
- Modifying sweater dimensions
- Fine-tuning garment length
- Creating a slimmer pant silhouette
- Reworking sleeve design
- Replacing stretched elastic in waistbands
Practice Garments to Bring:
Select practice garments that you no longer enjoy wearing or that don't fit your current lifestyle. Your valuable class time is best spent practicing skills, which can be difficult when you're worried about damaging a beloved piece. It's much easier and far less stressful to cut into a vintage graphic hoodie that cost less than a dollar, and you'll actually learn more from the experience. Even if you ultimately want to alter one specific cherished item, practice on something else first; it's the fastest path to mastery. You're welcome to bring in any piece you'd like advice on, but we recommend practicing on something expendable first.
Please avoid bringing heavyweight pants, including denim, thick corduroy, or leather jackets. The same methods you learn will work on all pants, but you'll pick up the techniques more quickly on lightweight to mid-weight materials first.
If you'd like to organize materials in advance, you can find weekly requirements below. Generally, bring items that are oversized or lengthy, though if you have something you'd like to make bigger, feel free to bring it and ask for guidance.
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Week 1: Two knit items like t-shirts or stretchy tops to shorten, plus two non-stretch items such as button-ups, pants, or skirts to hem
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Week 2: Two oversized button-up shirts to practice reducing at seams, or any garments requiring seam alterations
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Week 3: Two additional oversized button-up shirts; these are excellent for practicing curved fitting
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Week 4: Two tops, skirts, dresses, or jackets that feature intersecting seams
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Week 5: Two items with sleeves, preferably without linings; you'll practice customizing armhole fit
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Week 6: Two lightweight to mid-weight trouser items
