Most recently I bought this cute sweater dress on clearance at Target. It is so comfy but can also be dressed up or just worn casually so I felt like it would be a good addition to my closet. (Please excuse my lack of shoes).
However, one of the problems I always have with dresses and skirts is that they are never quite long enough. This dress was close, but when I sat down came up just a little too high for my taste. Luckily, it had about a 3 inch hem, leaving plenty of room for me to take it down and add a couple inches in length. Plus the dress just used a regular straight stitch for the hem, rather than a blind stitch which is more common, making this alteration even easier.
Because I wanted to match the look of the original hem, I used extra wide bias tape. Bias tape is so easy to use and inexpensive. You can find it in just about any color and width at any fabric or craft store, or even at Walmart.
First, use a seam ripper to unpick the original seams and lay dress flat.
Next, lay your tape and fabric, right sides together, matching up the edges. You can pin if you want, but probably don't need to. Sew tape onto fabric, using the small fold in tape as a guide.
Trim off the extra tape and your dress should now look like this.
Turn dress inside out and fold up hem to desired length. I wanted the hem seam to be about the same as the original so I folded up the fabric about 3 inches.
Pin all around. If you have slippery fabric you may also want to iron your hem to make sure it stays put when you sew, but this knitted fabric was heavy and easy to keep in place so I didn't worry about ironing.
Depending on the look you want you would now either do a blind hem or a straight stitch. I am matching the original hem so I did I straight stitch as close the the top of the tape as possible. Then I flipped the dress right side out and did a second straight stitch, using the first as a guide and matching the look of the original hem.
Trim off any loose threads and you're all done!
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