There was another addition required to finish the dresses I did the hem for. All of the dresses were silky and the collar line was wide so they kept on slipping off the shoulder. We decided the best option was to sew in a tab that could trap the bra strap to keep it from slipping off. I have since found different names for strap retainers.
The photo below shows you part of the process.
I didn’t take that many photos because this was done in a complete hurry with little time to spare !
Above you can see what the strap looked like when finished. It should have been neater but making it once means I will remember and improve future ones.
As I didn’t have any ribbon handy I just cut two pieces of black elastic and with a needle I sewed snap fasteners like the ones in the photo below.
When I finished them all I still really wanted to see how people actually make these retainers. I managed to find this 4-year old tutorial below. This is a very detailed tutorial that takes you through the process of sewing the ‘retainers’ by hand.
Most importantly the video uses ready made ‘retainers’ so Lindsey didn’t have to struggle to sew in the snap fasteners. My major stumbling block was the thickness of my needle; it just didn’t want to go through some of the small holes of the daintier fasteners so I had to use the bigger (chunkier) ones.
I’ve also now found ready-made strap retainers on Amazon and will be buying some to check whether they work any better. I found this Milward retainers for £5.30 or around 50 Steem for 4 of them. A cheaper option was this couple of Hemline retainers for £3.99 or around 40 Steem. I'm also interested in trying these because they include a safety pin so I wonder whether or not they are permanently fixed to the garment.
When I sewed mine in I had to rip them out a couple of times to make sure they were okay and one of those times the feedback was that it needed to be the other way around, which is clearly shown in the video.
Although it was stressful I enjoyed learning about this addition to a garment to make it more comfortable.
Thank you for reading !