You know how dresses (particularly halter neck, strapless or one shoulder dresses) often have hanging ribbon attached at the side seams inside the dress? As helpful as it is when putting your dress on a hanger, it’s really annoying when the ribbons poke out from your dress when you’re wearing it! I want to show you a really neat trick to hold them inside the dress when you’re wearing it.
It’s as simple as creating a thread loop inside the dress to hold the hanging ribbon in place!
Thread a hand sewing needle with a double thread and knot the end. You will need quite a long piece of thread. Mark a point at the seam about 8 – 10 cm (3 – 4”) below where the ribbon is attached.
Insert the needle at this point and do a tiny stitch to anchor your work. Make sure you only stitch through the lining (or seam allowance if the dress is not lined) so the stitch doesn’t show on the right side of the garment.
Begin to take a second stitch, but don’t pull the thread all the way through. You should have a big loop of thread that hasn’t been pulled through.
Pull the thread a bit more so you are left with a smaller loop that’s just big enough to easily fit two fingers in it.
Put two fingers through the loop and grasp the tail of thread between the two fingers and pull it through, but only part way. Don’t pull it all the way through! Pull it so that the original loop tightens and the thread you are pulling through forms a new loop.
Repeat this by again poking two fingers through the loop, pulling the thread partially through creating a new loop while the original loop tightens. Keep doing this over and over again and you will notice a chain of linked thread appearing.
Once it reaches about 1 cm (3/8”) long, it’s time secure it. If you were to pull the end of the thread with the needle at this point, the whole thing would unravel, which isn’t what we want. To secure it, simply poke the needle through the loop and pull it all the way through.
Insert the needle back into the fabric about 1 cm (3/8”) away from where you started, again being careful to only sew through the lining (if your dress is unlined, just take very tiny stitches and make sure you’re using a matching thread so the stitches aren’t too visible on the outside). Sew three tiny stitches exactly on top of one another to finish off and then cut the thread. Repeat on the other side.
The next time you want to wear your dress, before putting it on, slip the ribbon down through the thread loops you have created. They will help prevent the ribbon from slipping out.
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Clever! and quite easy, a very helpful suggestion, thank you.