Making clothes bigger

Above the waist

1. Do you have a top or dress that is too tight around the bust? If there is a zip in the back, unpick the zip or undo the centre back seam, or if there is no centre back seam - mark down the centre back and cut.  Make small loops and attach on each side about 2.5 cm (1") apart.  Make a cord and thread the cord into each side of the loops making a crisscross down the back.  This is the perfect situation for a wedding dress that is too tight.  In the past I have had to do this for a number of ladies - days before the wedding.  If you don't want to see any skin, then make a square panel and insert it under the crisscross.  This can be attached to one side.  Usually I would only have the panel around the waist, bottom area, and have the skin showing in the back.

2.  A lot of dresses have dress zips in the back.  A dress zip uses more fabric than an invisible zip, so take the dress zip out and replace it with an invisible zip.  You will be surprised at how much extra room you get, and if there are darts or seams at the back, release them as well.  Note that some darts have the machine burn hole at the end, so you may have to just reduce the size of the dart so that you still cover the burn hole.

3.  Halter neck tops or dresses can be made bigger at the bust by inserting a panel on either side of the front bust panels (armhole side).  I recently had a client who had a halter neck dress, and she wanted the length shortened, which I did, and then used the cut off for the side insert.  I folded the cutoff over and joined one side to the armhole side (which I had unpicked).  Then joined the bottom of the strip to the band that went under the bust, and hand stitched the back to the back panel.  Almost all bust panels in halter necks are double fabric.  You could use a contract colour if you wanted, because it doesn't have to be with the same fabric.

Happy altering
Judith aka genie