Top stitching can stop you from taking in the sides of a garment.  But there will be times when you have to unpick the top stitching, take in the sides and re top stitch.  If the garment is jeans, don’t despair about getting the cotton color right.  A lot of domestic sewing machines do not like the thick denim cotton.  If your sewing machine will not sew the thick cotton use two cottons to achieve the same look.  You may have to use two slightly different colors to get the same color as the jeans cotton.  Don’t wind two cottons onto your bobbin.  Sew topside with the two cottons running through the top of your machine.

When you turn the garment inside out, have a look to see if the topstitching is in a chain stitch or unraveller as I call it.  This can save you a lot of time and trouble unpicking.  If you ever find that unpicking the seam is hard, have a good look at the seam, because a chain stitch can be hard to unpick.  It unravels from the left to the right as you look at the stitch.

Happy altering
Judith aka genie