When you’re a mother of three daughters, having a closet full of children’s dresses becomes almost inevitable. Some dresses will be passed on from one sister to the next. Some will be passed on to friends and some proves to be so popular that they’ll stay with the first owner for years. Saying goodbye to a favorite dress, or maybe even worse, having to pass down your favorite dress to your little sister, can be a heartbreaking affair and so I like to try and find dresses for my girls which in some way can grow together with them.

Either because it can transform from a long dress to a short, a dress to a tunic or, in the best cases, because the designer has added an extra wide hem that gives you the possibility of lowering it and in that way extend the life of the dress. 

Here I’m letting down the hem on one of my favorite dress styles from the American brand Soor Ploom. This dress comes with an extra wide hem because the designer and owner of the brand, Marissa, wanted to give us the option of adding a lot of extra lengths to the dress if needed. And since the dress has a wide baby doll shape most children can easily get an extra year or two of wear out of this little change.

What you need:

Seam ripper

Scissors

Thread

Needle

Measuring tape

Pins

An iron

A dress

Steps

1. Turn the dress inside out.

2. Using the seam ripper take out the hem. Work slowly and carefully to avoid ripping the fabric. When the seam is out, iron the hem flat.

3. Let your child try on the dress, decide how much you want to lower the hem, and mark it with a fabric pencil or a pin. 

4. Fold the remaining fabric over twice to create a new hem, so that the edge of the fabric becomes encased in the second fold. Fasten with pins and gently iron the new hem to keep it in place before you start sewing.

5. Grab your thread and your sewing needle, thread the needle and tie a knot at the end of your thread.

6. There are a few different types of stitches you can choose from when hemming a dress, but I normally go with a whip stitch or a slip stitch (you can see here how to do both). They are both almost invisible on the right side and still very easy and pretty quick to do.

Sew the new hem all the way around, knot off the end, iron the hem one more time and the dress is ready for a new life.

This post is made in collaboration with Soor Ploom. Thank you for supporting the brands that support Little Kin Journal.