Should I get a new tailor? (Bad sewing jobs? Need Advice)

Greetings everyone, this is my first post here on these forums. I have been watching quite alot of videos on youtube about men's style and have been improving my wardrobe ever since. So I know I needed a tailor and I live in the middle of nowhere on the east coast. I wanted to find a tailor that was local and cheap but did a good job. Well I found the cheap part (She has a tailoring business that isn't a part of a dry cleaners and charges like $5 for taking in a shirt and $5 for slimming arms and $10 for hemming pants) So anyway, I brought her one shirt like videos suggest and I guess I didn't see anything wrong so I brought her 5 shirts. These are just my Jos A Bank shirts and thrift store finds but...I want to ask if these are acceptable sewing jobs or should I go find another tailor? I had her slim the sides and arms of most of these. I am no expert on needlework, but even I can see the lines aren't straight and there are weird overlaps she made on the arms and sometimes the thread doesn't match like on that blue shirt. Is this normal? Also she leaves pins in the shirts sometimes when I get them back. The alterations fit alright, so no problem there. I'll let the pictures do the talking. I don't have hundreds of dollars to throw at alterations but I would gladly pay double if it's needed. There are menswear tailors in a city an hour away. So is the quality acceptable or move on? Thanks for any advice!

Oh yeah and forgive the wrinkles on the shirts. I haven't bought a steamer yet

Are you happy with them? It looks pretty sloppy to me.

That's just it, I don't know how to tell good sewing, but I can tell what a straight line is and that is not a straight line. And I don't know what that overlap is but it shouldn't be there should it? I guess I will have to keep looking and only take my dark thick fabric stuff to her like sweaters that don't show.

That sort of stitching is either amateurish or she just doesn't care enough about her work to do it right. Wouldn't recommend you going back to her.

Well learn the hard way Well, as far as those shirts, do you think anyone will notice any of that?

If you are walking down the street, not a chance anyone can spot those little details. But if you are at the next table at a café or something, I'll definitely notice.

My advice will be to go back to this particular tailor and demand that she resew them altogether. Hopefully she does a better job. Obviously, never bring anymore stuff for her to alter again though.

mrballs said:

If you are walking down the street, not a chance anyone can spot those little details. But if you are at the next table at a café or something, I'll definitely notice.

My advice will be to go back to this particular tailor and demand that she resew them altogether. Hopefully she does a better job. Obviously, never bring anymore stuff for her to alter again though.

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^this

don't go back
i doubt the tailor has the skills to do it properly

no one will notice unless they really know something about clothing.
It would have been easier to remove the cuff and cut the entire seam out

advictoriam said:

I wanted to find a tailor that was local and cheap but did a good job. Well I found the cheap part (She has a tailoring business that isn't a part of a dry cleaners and charges like $5 for taking in a shirt and $5 for slimming arms and $10 for hemming pants) So anyway, I brought her one shirt like videos suggest and I guess I didn't see anything wrong so I brought her 5 shirts. These are just my Jos A Bank shirts and thrift store finds but...I want to ask if these are acceptable sewing jobs or should I go find another tailor? I had her slim the sides and arms of most of these. I am no expert on needlework, but even I can see the lines aren't straight and there are weird overlaps she made on the arms

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Yes, most of us want to find the holy grail but the reality of life is that 99% of the time you get what you pay for. Properly slimming the arms of a shirt is a lot more effort than hemming a pair of trousers and so just the pricing alone tells me its not going to be an amazing job.

You dont even need 5/5 vision to see those alterations arent right let alone being a needlework expert but for someone running their own business rather than just sitting in a dry cleaners and thus having much higher overheads, $5 is tiny money.

The alterations are very poor but as others have said, from a distance many people probably wont notice. If you want a better job to be done you need to consider either learning how to do things yourselves (and many amatures could do better than this) or accept you have to pay a fair rate for a fair job

This is sloppy work.

You should insist that the tailor remove the entire stitching before sewing on. It looks like she conveniently sew onto the existing stitching. Hence, stitching will look ugly and not last after few washes.

Some good tailors will carry special equipments like double stitch machine and charge more. The prices she charged you are too good to be true though.

Kieu N said:

This is sloppy work.

You should insist that the tailor remove the entire stitching before sewing on. It looks like she conveniently sew onto the existing stitching. Hence, stitching will look ugly and not last after few washes.

Some good tailors will carry special equipments like double stitch machine and charge more. The prices she charged you are too good to be true though.

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Absolutely!! I think it's high time you need to change your tailor....