I love spaghetti straps but unless the bodice has an underwire bra, there’s little chance that I’ll be going braless just for those pretty little straps. Today I’m going to show you a really quick way to add width to your straps and keep the cute little spaghetti straps. I received a couple of emails with suggestions but before those, I received this idea from GillianCrafts on Twitter. Thanks Gillian!
This dress is from a couple of years back, from Banana Republic. I like wearing it but I never feel comfortable so I always wear it with a cardigan- not something I can do all through summer. It’s just too hot.
Here we go.
For fabric, I actually used a 2 way knit but I cut it on the crosswise grain, or along the width of the fabric, so that the straps wouldn’t stretch with wear.
You’ll need two strips of fabric as wide as the bra you’re planning on wearing beneath your dress/tank, and make sure you add 1/2″ to the width as a seam allowance. For the length, I measured the straps on my dress and added 1″ to the length for a seam allowance.
I measured my strips to be 5″ wide by 14″ long. I cut them in half.
 
Fold both of the strips of fabric in half, lengthwise and stitch with a 1/4″ seam allowance. Next you need to turn your straps right side out. I like using a tube turner.
 
 
  
As you can see below, I centered the seam in the middle of the strap after turning it.
Since my fabric wasn’t going to fray, I put it behind the bodice with the seam on the bottom so it wouldn’t show when wearing the dress. If you use a fabric that will fray, tuck it under a 1/4″ before stitching it down. I added a black line so you could see how I stitched the strap to the bodice. The photo on the right shows how I tacked down the spaghetti strap to the new strap to keep it in place at about midway along the strap.
 
Now I can wear it without the need for a cardi to cover up my straps.
A simple yet effective fix for the times I can actually wear RTW garments. Next month, I’ll be tackling more requests that have been emailed to me at leila [at] hourglassy [dot] com. Feel free to send in your own question!
This is so clever. It preserves the delicacy of the design while giving you the coverage you need! Quick question: why did you cut the strips in half, and did you do this lengthwise?
Thanks for helping me clarify. I measured the width of my bra strap and doubled that amount and then added enough for both seam allowances. I wanted to cut one big rectangle instead of having to measure two rectangles. You can definitely measure two rectangles and cut them out separately. I hope this helps clarify.
What a great fix – I love it, because I often feel a spaghetti strap looks too flimsy with a bigger bust.
I feel the same way. The straps on this dress always did feel flimsy even though I always wore a bra with it. I was always worried the spaghetti straps would pop off.
I had the same idea but have been trying to figure out how I would go about it! See, I’m reading this 10 years after you posted it! Thank you for actually sharing ! You just never know how you have helped others, even 10 years later!