Type of seam used for shirt alterations?

[Icarium]

I'm trying to do a little survey here of what kind of seam people's tailors use for shirt seam alteration - as in when the sides are taken in, etc... Do most people's tailors just go right ahead and use the flat-felled seam? (type of seam most shirts OTR use - see here) My asian tailor always want to just do a straight running stitch then finish the ends with a Serger and press them flat. It looks okay, but is different than the rest of the shirt if you really look at it.

 

[anon]

My seams look more like French seams.. and they look like ****.

 

[hoffmand]

I'm trying out two tailors in Austin right now for shirt slimming. The first charges $16 if he serges, $20 to replicate the original double seam. I had him do a shirt with the double seam and it matches the other seams very well.

The other tailor highly recommended using a serged seam ($20) and said he would do the double seam but it wasn't worth the expense. Especially on the first shirt I did with him he wanted the option to easily make more alterations to fine tune the fit. I haven't gotten that shirt back yet though. BTW, he does bespoke shirts and uses single seams. He was wearing one of his shirts and it looked nice.

 

[hoffmand]

I got the shirt back from the second tailor. It's a single stitch finished with a serger. It looks fine, just not as nice as the other place that used a matching flat-felled seam.

On a side note, I got a quick training on my wife's sewing machine and serger and tapered 4 of my shirts one night last week. They came out as good as the tailor's and only took 20 minutes per shirt or so. They definitely get easier as I got more comfortable with the sewing machine. I'm slowly making my way through the rest of my shirts now.

 

[anon]

Originally Posted by hoffmand

I got the shirt back from the second tailor. It's a single stitch finished with a serger. It looks fine, just not as nice as the other place that used a matching flat-felled seam. On a side note, I got a quick training on my wife's sewing machine and serger and tapered 4 of my shirts one night last week. They came out as good as the tailor's and only took 20 minutes per shirt or so. They definitely get easier as I got more comfortable with the sewing machine. I'm slowly making my way through the rest of my shirts now.
I'd ultimately like to learn how to do this on my own. Was it difficult? Or I'll just start buying MTM.

 

[hoffmand]

It was quite easy after I sacrificed the first practice shirt to the serger. Sergers are wonderful but dangerous time-savers because they stitch and cut the excess material all at once.

I used one of my tailored shirts as a template and set it on top of the new shirt (which is inside-out and ironed). Trace the outline on the inside of the new shirt with chalk and pin it in a few places to keep it together. I used a matching thread and sewed a fine, straight stitch following my chalk line. The fine straight stitch keeps the seam invisible once it's ironed. Since I had a serger, I then used it to cut the excess material and finish the inside of the seam all at once. But since most people only have a sewing machine, just use a zig-zag stitch and scissors to get practically the same thing.

I'm sold on doing this to all my shirts now. I can't stand baggy shirts anymore.