Altering bell sleeves can be different based on the material and whether the bell sleeves are cut on a bias.

For Christmas I received this cute sweater dress but it had bell sleeves that I didn’t care for so much so I decided to alter it myself ( which is quite an accomplishment because often I put my own alterations in a pile and never get to them.

This is the great bell sleeve on the sweater dress. I felt like it would get in my way for work or bother me as I go about my day.

This sleeve has a seam separating the bell from the upper part of the sleeve. Most of the time this is how bell sleeves are added to a garment.

To begin the alteration separate the bell from the upper sleeve. This can be done by using a seam ripper to take out the original seam. In this case I opted to simply cut off the old seam because the sleeve was a little long anyway and I knew a new seam would make the sleeve shorter which is what I wanted.

As you can see the bell sleeve is much wider than the upper sleeve. Because this is a sweater the bell is shaped differently than if it was a material like chiffon that doesn’t stretch.

After sewing the new width of the bell sleeve, trim it to size and reattach it to the garment. For this sweater I also tapered the upper sleeve to make it slightly narrower because I felt the sleeve was a little wide.