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Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Easy Jeans Hem Tutorial

I wanted to share this with my readers, as just this week it has saved me $40 in alterations.

I. am. short. No, not like 5'3 short. More like 4'11 short, lol. One of my hubby's comments about me when he first met me was that I was "like, really short".

Soo, if I ever want jeans, even the petite jeans are usually too long, as I almost always wear flats.

In the past, I have gone around with rolled under or pants that have been "hemmed" with masking tape (high school) or gone to a tailor (pricey). Now, I will say, by having them professionally hemmed, I did get to see the best way to do this alteration!
I will share something else with you...I am a cheapskate when it comes to certain things. Like jeans. I literally will not wear cheap jeans. Why? Because they are awful on me. With jeans especially, quality is very important, higher quality jeans have just the perfect cut and stretch to them! Did I mention that it is super great to have a pair for flats and a pair for heels (in my case, slight wedges). So over the past few months, I have not had a pair of jeans (last year I was in maternity jeans, that is another looong story finding those).. I did buy some at a cheap store, but they stretched so bad they would gradually slip down, which I can't have with two little ones!! Every time I go to the thrift store, I scour the jeans section. I look through EVERY SINGLE PAIR. I found 2 pairs a couple of months ago, but have been too lazy to hem them up. Really, once I had everything in place, it went fast! We are talking pairs of jeans that retail for over $100 mine for like, I dunno $5.99 or something. So I can afford 2 pair!
 **This way of hemming jeans keeps the original hem. There are numerous tutorials out there on this. If mine is unclear, please ask.**

Step 1 Try jeans on with shoes you intend on wearing

crazy long
 Step 2 Fold up to right above where you want the hem to fall (right above because you are keeping the existing hem) and measure
I am awful at math, so I literally fold the tape measure in half to get the exact measurement
 
 Step 3: Take half of that measurement and REFOLD the jeans up that amount (dont include original hem in measurement) PIN!!
 Step 4: GIT YER STUFF! Gather your thread, jeans needles (I promise, this will be easier with the proper denim needle), I tried a jeanamajig thing but I couldnt figure it out

Step 5: Sew to the right of the original hem, very very close but not on top of the hem, all the way around. Fold in, Press with an IRON and trim excess fabric.
  
 Step 6: Serge or zig zag to finish inside. Press again, and topstitch! This is an extra but important step, it makes the hem lay very nicely.




Enjoy!!



1 comment:

  1. Awesome! I'm neither Regular nor Petite.... If I had a sewing machine, I'd do this to all those jeans.

    ReplyDelete

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