Sewing a Tricky Hem

A tricky hem can bring your jeans to the right height while maintaining a department store look.

Jeans are an important part of many a good fashion statement, but finding a pair at the department store that is exactly your size and your style can prove fairly difficult. Many pairs might fight you in the waist, only to be too long in the inseam. But such pairs are wearable, because you do not need to worry about the flat edge of a typical home-sewn hem. Instead, you can make a tricky hem that looks similar to the department store finish.

Things You'll Need

• Ruler
• 2 pins
• Scissors
• Seam gauge
• Sewing machine with leather needle
• Heavy-duty fabric tape
• Clothes iron

Instructions

1. Instruct the wearer of the jeans to stand straight up and face away from you. Place the ruler vertically between her heels so that you can see how high on her leg the 12-inch mark is. Insert one pin horizontally in each pant leg at the 12-inch mark.

2. Mark the placement of the hem on the back of the person's pant leg with the black marker. It should be about 1/4 inch from the floor, or more as the wearer prefers. Have the wearer take off the pants, taking care not to move the pins in each pant leg.

3. Fold the pants in half and lay them on a flat surface, such as a table. The pins in the back of the legs should line up horizontally, as should the hem marks. If there is more than 1 inch of difference between the pins, redo Steps 1 and 2 to double-check the placement of the hem. If the pins are lined up, draw out the hem mark as a straight line across the width of one of the folded pant legs.

4. Hold the legs of the folded jeans together and cut across the line you drew in Step 3 through both legs to cut off the old hem. That should give you two circles of fabric that are as wide as the difference between the old and new hem lines. Invert these circles so that their stitching is facing out. Use the seam gauge to measure how wide the old hem was.

5. Loop one of the invert denim circles over the bottom of each of the cut pant legs.

6. Pin them into place with two pins through each leg and circle pair. Pin them high enough so that when the part of the denim circle that is above the old stitching is bent back down the jeans are the correct length of the hem.

7. Sew the denim circles into place all the way around each of the pant legs. Sew slowly and place the sewing machine needle just to the right of the old row of stitching.

8. Apply the heavy-duty fabric glue under the scissor edge of each of the now-sewn denim circles to keep them in place. Iron over the glued edge to bond it and allow it to set for 15 minutes. Then fold the denim circles back down to straighten out the newly hemmed pant legs.

Tips & Warnings

• To make certain that the hem is where the wearer wants it to be, make sure she is wearing the jeans during the measurements and that she is wearing the kind of shoes she will normally wear with those jeans.

References

• Really Handmade: How to Sew: Tricky Hems