How to Alter a Cami

I feel like I’m constantly on the lookout for undershirts that come up high enough . . . I wear a cami under pretty much everything but I can never find ones that come up high enough and actually provide some coverage!

I love getting my camis at Forever 21 for less than $2 – there are so many colors to choose from and the camis always last me a long time. Recently, I found the same style of camis at WalMart for $1.69 in the juniors’ section!! I was so excited 🙂 I’m normally a small/medium shirt size but I got a large 11/13 since they were juniors size. I got a white, cream, and gray and it only took a few minutes to alter them to fit me perfectly!

Start out by tying the straps and trying on your cami . . . you can adjust the knot to figure out how much you want to raise it up. *Word of caution – make sure the armholes are not going to be too small as you are raising it up. I know from experience if you raise it up too high, the armholes will be too tight :-/ I always tie my knot close to the front of the cami rather than the middle of the strap. I feel like that helps bring up the front more.

After I tied and tried, I used my handy-dandy chalk marker and marked the spots where I needed to cut. I marked the ‘front’ of the strap and the ‘back’ of the strap by the knot . . .

I cut about an inch above the yellow line in both places, then overlapped the straps. I lined up the yellow line on the front with the raw edge of the back so they overlapped about an inch. Because I mostly wear camis under shirts and the straps don’t get seen much, I didn’t really worry about how the strap would look.

After I lined up the straps as I wanted, I pinned them in place. (also – when I overlapped the straps, I overlapped the front one over the back one for a smoother seam)

Then I just sewed a few lines of stitching on the overlapped part . . . making sure to backstitch at my starting and ending points . . . and voila!

Easy as pie – now you have a cami that comes up as high as you want! I seriously am doing this all.the.time to my camis and undershirts 🙂