1. Look for easy fixes!! Some examples are:
*shorten/lengthen straps *hem pants/skirt *reattach a broken/missing strap *replace missing buttons (you can change all of them if one has fallen off, and it won't take more than ten minutes--you can even take the buttons you like from another piece that you don't like.)
*add material to sleeves or a skirt to make it longer (if any of you have seen my monkey arms, you know I've had to do this plenty of times!)
*add darts to pants, skirts, or dresses to take them in a little bit (a dart is when you sew at an angle; for example, when a woman has a big tush but a small waist, there is often extra material at the waist that sticks out--one can easily sew a stitch starting very gradually and then getting more intense as it gets closer to the top of the pants so that the seam lays flat, but the material is still taken in--leave a comment if this is confusing, and I can explain in greater detail in another post.)
2. Pay attention to fabric!
Some easy fabrics to work with are:
*cotton *polyester *stretch jersey *rayon *silk (if it is something easy like a hem or strap problem--be careful about detailed silk work because it will easily show errors.)
Some fabrics to avoid fixing yourself are:
*denim (it eats sewing machine needles if you don't know what you're doing!)
*wool
3. If you really love it, take it to a tailor!
Some things are better left to a tailor because if you are not very skilled, the outcome may look sloppy which would prevent you from wearing it and defeat the whole process. Personally, I would send the following things to a tailor if I found a cheap piece that I loved dearly:
*hemming jeans (it costs $10 or less at a tailor, and it's well worth it!)
*a bodice or dress with boning *taking in a dress with a lining
*beadwork that will need to be redone (this can be very expensive, so you may save this for a wedding dress or something equally important)
*fixing or attaching a new zipper
*altering a suit for work (you want it to look as nice and professional as possible--it's worth the investment)
If you find something that knocks your socks off, but it needs major alterations, it may still be worth it to take it to a tailor. Even if the work costs $20 (probably only dresses would cost that much or more because they're time consuming--hemming is usually around $10), you probably spent less than $15 on the garment, so a total cost of $35 is still reasonable if it's something you love and will wear often. If, however, the tailor estimates the work to be over $50, you should strongly consider whether it's worth it or not--perhaps you can reuse the fabric as a pillow or a handbag.
Recently, while doing research around Phildelphia and South Jersey, my associate and I found two great examples of this idea of alterations. We took pictures of the small repairs we made to show as an example--one dress needed to shorten the straps, and one dress was too long in the torso, so we took in some material at the top of the shoulder.
Both alterations took less than 30 minutes total from start to finish.The blue Anthropologie dress cost $5, and the purple Ann Taylor dress cost $3--not bad for $8 bucks!
