Growth spurts; those wonderful milestones in your child’s development that, seemingly overnight, strike a death blow to over half of your child’s wardrobe. Follow these savvy tips and you just may be able to salvage a good portion of your growing child’s clothing.
Let-Down-Hem-Hiding 101
With the exception of jeans, most pants and skirts have a few inches of hem to play with. Carefully removes the hem stitching. Use a high quality seam ripper with a sharp inner curve and small blade. Hem stitches applied to children’s clothing are quite short and the smaller point will make your job much easier. Make the hemline disappear by following these steps:
1. Carefully pick out all remaining cut threads.
2. BEFORE IRONING, dab a solution of one part water, one part vinegar onto the crease. Be sure to thoroughly wet the fabric.
3. Place an old towel onto your ironing board cover to protect it, and then press the crease out.
4. Examine the garment. If there is no difference in color above or below or including the old crease, launder the garment. If there is a color difference, read on.
Disguising Faded Fabric and Crease Lines
If the garment you are rescuing has been in service for awhile, hemlines on darker clothing may develop a light colored crease, while lighter clothing may have picked up a stained appearance. If your child is a girl, it’s easy to disguise the line with lace, embellishments, and any number of other tricks. Check out current jean and skirt treatments to get ideas that will make a great fashion statement. Boys, however, do not enjoy lace trimmed jeans or slacks. You make try dying the entire garment to fix the problem. Or use a powerful bleach or oxygen cleaner on a stained crease. Other favorite solutions the use of permanent markers and acrylic paints to mask the line.
Don’t give up on pants and skirts that get too short too fast. Give these tips a try and you may be happily surprised at the result.