Did I Just Gain Weight?

I loved this yellow parent-and-child matching outfits from my previous post, so we wore them several times.

But after wearing my dress three or four times, it started to feel tight — so tight that I could no longer zip it up by myself.

Naturally, I assumed it was my fault and thought, Oh no… have I gained weight? Haha.

My son’s overalls also seemed to be bunching up strangely around the crotch, but I simply thought, He must have grown.

The difference may be hard to see in the photos, but the dress in particular had become very tight.

The Copies Helped Me Notice

I had several pairs of overalls made for my son in the same design but with different fabrics.

Then one day, I put him in one of the other pairs and realized that it still fit exactly the same as before.

Only the yellow pair had become smaller.

Once I placed them side by side, the difference was obvious.

My yellow dress had also originally been made to the same length as the green dress I had brought as a reference. But when I compared the two, they were no longer the same length.

That was when it finally hit me.

They had shrunk!!!!!

And not only that — the color had clearly faded too.

How Much Did They Shrink?

When I placed the pieces side by side and measured them, I found that:

The dress had shrunk by approximately 7 centimeters
The overalls had shrunk by approximately 4.5 centimeters

They should have been washed roughly the same number of times.

I never imagined they would shrink — and fade — this much, this quickly.

What I Learned

Since I was still new to custom tailoring, I had been playing it safe and asking for copies of clothes I already owned.

I sometimes thought that was a little boring of me, but in this case, it turned out to be useful because it made the changes so easy to compare. Haha.

It was a valuable lesson in just how differently fabrics can behave.

My biggest regret is that I didn’t write down exactly what the fabric was made of.

I think it was some kind of linen blend — definitely not 100% linen — but I’m no longer sure. From now on, I’m going to make a note of the fabric composition so that I can share it and hopefully help others avoid buying the same kind of fabric.

Custom tailoring may be inexpensive, but if you can only wear something a few times before it no longer fits, it suddenly feels very expensive.

Next Journey : Refashioning Clothes from Chatuchak

Next time, instead of starting with fabric, I had a ready-made piece of clothing refashioned.

Next Journey : Refashioning Clothes from Chatuchak.