How to narrow shoulders for a shirt with sleeves

Welcome to a new class of sewing alterations, in today’s class we are going to teach you how to narrow shoulders for a shirt with sleeves.

This alteration is quite common, personally, it is one of my favourites since the garment changes a lot if the shoulder seam is in the right place.

For today’s class, we are going to use a shirt as an example but you could use the same techniques you will learn today to narrow the shoulders of a dress if it is not lined.

First of all, the client is asked to try on the garment that he/she wants to fix, we will put pins in it to know the exact amount that we want to remove.

In the video, you can see how the pins are left after the customer tried the shirt on, after that we will start the alteration.

Class

As usual in sewing alterations classes, I’m going to tell you how much I used to charge for making this type of alteration.

Remember that the price changes according to your country and your clientele but at the end of the day you have to decide how much to charge for your time, your knowledge and the continuous use of your machines, so this information is only for reference.

It is important that you remember that I worked in an area with a fairly high economic level in London.

For narrowing shoulders for a shirt with sleeves I used to charge about £20 (British pounds) per shirt.

As always, if you have any questions about today’s class, remember that you can send me an email through your user account, in the support section.

Submit your exercises

As you already know that the best way to learn sewing alterations is by doing it yourself, that’s why for today’s class I’m going to ask you to do the techniques you’ve learned today.

I recommend that you buy a second-hand shirt or use a shirt/dress that you want to throw away for practice.

You can use invented measurements, just practice as many times as necessary until you master the techniques you have learned today.

Remember to send me clear photos, where I can see, the before and after, also add at least a couple of photos of the sewing process.