Alterations Part Deux

Is 5/9 considered good? So between me and Nikki, we had 9 articles of clothing that we had dropped off at this seamstress in Chinatown. We should know that we get what we pay for. At $2 per pair of pants hemmed, we shouldn't expect much. I had 2 dresses altered- one for the rehearsal dinner which needed only the shoulder straps shortened and my reception dress (cheung sam.) The rehearsal dinner dress came out fine- no complaints. However, my reception dress was not to my liking. They altered the waist down fine, but then they also altered the bust which did not need alterations, so now it's tighter than it needs to be. They did not mark it as needing alterations and she even remarked that it did not need to be altered when I brought the dress in and tried it on. So now, I am considering buying the dress again and having someone else do the alterations. I can still sell the old dress on ebay, but it's more of a hassle factor at this point because I will still need to get it altered. Since the cost of the alterations was $5 for this dress, I blame myself because I should have known better. Lesson learned. As for my pants, I got 2 pair of pants hemmed which came out fine and one pair needed repair because the belt loop broke. The pants with the broken belt loop got returned in the same condition that I gave it to them which means that nothing was done.

Nikki, on the other hand, her bridesmaids dress did not look altered to me. It still had the chalk marks along the zipper. However, they assured me that they did alter the dress, just not in the zipper like they thought they would. If that was the case, they should have at least removed the chalk marks!!! So now I have to wait until Nikki returns from her vacation in Hawaii and hope that it fits. As for Nikki's pants, she received one pair hemmed as specified and the other 2 were supposed to have a double stitched hem (which they charged her an extra $1 for) and they only had a single stitch. Since they don't write anything down, I guess that we shouldn't be surprised that they got it wrong.

Moral of the story- you get what you pay for. A place like this is fine if you really only need a $2 pair of pants hemmed and you better not need it right the first time. So, the seamstress comes with mixed reviews. Dresses, not so good. Pants fine as long as it's not too complex and you don't mind making multiple trips.