There’s plenty of tutorials around the internet that take you through tightening clothes and making them smaller to fit better, but what if you wanted to make them bigger to fit better?

I have this top/dress thing that for some reason I just don’t like how tight it is. It feels too long to wear as a top, but I cant wear it as a dress as the tightness just makes it quickly ride up over my hips. So instead of letting it sit in my wardrobe doing nothing, I decided to spruce it up a bit and make it a bit bigger!

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So to widen a piece of clothing we have to add extra material, so find some scrap fabric that will compliment the colour. It doesn't necessarily have to match exactly- I chose to use black on a rusty orange dress as I think the contrast in the two colours looks great.

Cut a single line straight up the sides of the top or just unpick the seams if you want to save as much material as possible.

Cut out two triangles of your scrap fabric the same length as the cut you just made (and a little bit longer just to make sure!) with the base of the triangle being half of the length that you want to widen your top by. And then use that triangle to trace and cut out a duplicate so you’ll have two. I used the sides of an extra large t-shirt.

Line up the two edges of the top and the triangle together (wrong sides facing out) and pin down to prevent it slipping.

Sew along this edge. I sewed mine by hand as my machine sucks at sewing stretch fabric, but either way will do. It just takes longer to do it by hand!

Once done, line up the other side (wrong sides out), pin and sew as before. Then cut off any excess fabric.

Then just do the same thing to the other side, turn right side out and you’re done! Easy peasy :)

I may have been a little brief with this tutorial, so if I’ve missed anything out or you’re stuck with something, just drop me an ask and I’ll help out :)



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Update!

There is now a Pinterest friendly version of this tutorial! Happy pinning!