My friend recently broke out of prison and came round to my place in need of some sewing help, because her bright orange jumpsuit was far too conspicuous... because it just wasn't tailored properly. There was enough space in the suit for two people. And probably a small country as well.
I cut several inches off of each side - all the way from the cuff to underarm, then down to the ankle. There was very little time to do a spotlessly perfect job, so rather than carefully measuring the amount for each side... I just estimated and went for it. I tacked the sides, then machined them with straight stitch, chopped the excess fabric, and oversewed with a zigzag stitch.
I also shortened the arms and legs significantly. The thing about being on the run, if you're being chased, well is you don't want to trip on your prisoner jumpsuit. So I decided it would be good to put elastic in the bottom of the ankle hem. I created a channel that was large enough to hold the elastic, leaving a gap of about an inch through which to insert the elastic. I fed the elastic round the inside of the channel using a safety pin to guide it through. Then, after stitching the ends of the elastic together to make a loop, I used the thread-ends from the machine stitching to hand-sew the gap closed.
Finally, I decided to make a belt, to make the suit an even better fit. Using the offcuts, I sewed a corresponding seam along the opposite side to the existing one, to form a channel. I then trimmed the edges back as close as possible and turned it inside out. Then I sewed each edge again - to form a French seam. Once turned the right way out again, I fed some more elastic through the middle.
I then sent my friend on her way, to continue her prison break. Somewhere, she picked up a more conspicuous helmet, which made blending in slightly more challenging... but at least the jumpsuit wasn't the size of a house!
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