One of the tasks before the wedding was to shorten the sleeves on the vintage wedding dress.

I cut well below the level I wanted to achieve, then deconstructed the original cuffs to capture and reuse the stiffening net. I also saved the buttons in case repairs were needed at the back closure of the dress.

I basted a line of visible stitching as a guide just below the intended sleeve hem and then attached the stiffening net to the top. I then turned the netting underneath to the back and invisibly stitched the (now) top edge to secure it. You can’t even tell it’s been altered and it was a fairly simple job. Reusing the original materials removed the need to color-match, something that can be difficult to do with vintage items.