hi I'm Stephanie with Baby Lock having an evening gown hand is expensive but if you're comfortable with a serger or a sewing machine Michael in this video is to empower you to hem that dress yourself it's as easy as one two three we are going to mark the hem cut the hem and then ultimately stitch that one thing that's really important is when you're having a long dress that the wearer needs to stand comfortably so you want to make sure that she's not standing very straight but that she's also not slouching over because if she was flopping over that would lengthen the hem and then when she stands up if we were to cut it off there it would shorten the hem so we just need her to stand comfortably make sure that your feet are about shoulder width apart and then you also want to make sure that they're wearing the shoes that we're going to wear for the wedding or prom or homecoming whatever it is make sure that they're wearing the same shoes all right now we're going to get down on the ground and pin the dress Kellie is standing comfortably and I also want to make sure that she's not looking down because again if you look down that could lengthen your hand so you want to have the wearer just look straight out so I like to pin the front of the dress first and looking a lot of times I'll pin my outer layer and my lining together to know exactly where I want to pin however this dress there's a lot of extra fabric compared to the lining so what I typically do I'll have Kellie hold will you hold that layer and then I just want to mark my lining first okay so I'm going to mark one pin in the front and I want to do this right at the ground and one thing I forgot to mention you'll also want to pin on a hard floor we tend to sink into carpet so make sure that you're pinning right at the ground on a hard floor okay and Kellie if you could keep holding that and make one rotation so now I'm going to find the side seam and because this is a chiffon dress typically you'll find two layers of lining and those I'll typically pin together okay and we're going to pin it again right at the ground and it's really important that you don't push the dress up to the body too closely otherwise it will be too short so you'll want the dress just to sit the fabric you'll want the fabric just to sit where it naturally so let's have Kelly rotate one more time all right and this chiffon layer is kind of hanging in the way so I'm just going to have her hold that as well and same thing you'll have the two layers of lining you want the dress to sit naturally where it will fall okay and it will place another pin again right at the ground all right and one more turn for the lining and it's really important that you pin both sides you know you would just think that you could just place one pin and say it's at two and a half inches and you just cut two and a half inches around the whole thing but that's not really the case as you know all of us are built differently so someone who might have let's go ahead and drop this someone who might have bigger hips that would actually raise the dress hem okay so you know and that same with the stomach or the derriere it's different on everybody and it can raise or lower the hem so it can make it uneven you know shorter we need to take off less in the front more on the sides and vice versa that's what it's really important to pin all the way around all right so now we're going to work on the chiffon layer so Kelly if you can turn just a little bit towards me that's perfect all right and the length on the chiffon is actually more if you can see this we'll need to cut less off of the lining than the chiffon so that's why I pinned these two separately all right so again I'm just trying to arrange the fabric to how it would naturally fall and that's how you'll pin it so that it doesn't cut too short and we're pinning right at the ground okay and if you feel like for instance this dress is to fall if you feel like you need to place a couple extra pins by all means go ahead and place some extra pins again I'm going to spread that fabric to where it just sits naturally and it takes a little bit of playing so if you pin one and you notice that you know it's way too high and just go ahead and move it all right so we got a couple pins there on the front it's nice to have a couple to compare with each other as well all right so let's have Kelly rotate one more time and I also just wanted to mention I'm using straight pins here but if you are not going to hem the dress right away or if you're scared that those pins are going to fall out definitely use safety pins I use safety pins all the time and if you have a fuller dress you'll want to make sure that the sides team is sitting you know right to the side not too far to the back and it just sit right at the side like it naturally would all right we'll place that in there make sure it's nice and even with the ground okay go ahead and rotate again all right lift up your right heel thank you ma'am okay I'm going to find my center back seam again and some gowns have a built-in train so you just want to make sure that they either want there they want a train or it's not supposed to have a train because some that have trains the wearer doesn't want a train so that's when you'll want to cut it off but we're going to cut this right at the ground so go ahead and rotate last time all right and we're going to pin the final side seam all right Kelly if you can go ahead and rotate one more time and if you're using straight pins make sure you tell the person to watch their step so they don't step on it can you lift your right or left foot good okay thank you so I just like to kind of reassess how my pins look and again I'll just kind of move the fabric and make sure that it's sitting right at the ground and we're pinned check out my next video for cutting instructions