How to Sew a Pant Hem

While knowing basic sewing skills is not really a necessity in life, it can come quite in handy to know some fairly basic sewing techniques, especially when you live on your own. Learning how to sew a pants hem is not a difficult task by any means, though it does take a small amount of instruction and a little bit of practice to get it right. Learning how to sew a hem is only one of many important basic sewing techniques worth getting to know, but is definitely a good place to start. Why pay to have an alteration done by a tailor, when you can quickly and easily sew a pants hem all by yourself? Read on to learn how to sew a pants hem.

Things You'll Need

• Straight pins
• Tailors chalk or washable quilter's ink pen
• Scissors
• Needle and thread or threaded sewing machine

Instructions

Basic Guidelines

1. Regardless of whether you are sewing a pants hem by hand or with a machine, the first few steps of this tutorial are going to be the same.

2. Put the pair of pants on and decide what length they should be hemmed to.

3. Once you have decided upon the desired length, make a mark using tailors chalk or a washable ink pen for quilters to let you know where the hem should be.

4. Take the pants off and use pins to evenly pin the pants up at the mark that you made using the tailors chalk. When the pants are on, creating an even hem is a lot more difficult which is why they should be laid flat on a table before you begin to pin.

5. Once you have pinned all the way around the hem line of the pants, put them back on to make sure that you are still satisfied with the length. If the length is still how you want it and everything seems to be in order, the next step is going to be to begin the sewing process.

If Sewing By Hand

1. Press the hem into place with an iron and make sure that the fabric is laying flat.

2. Trim off the excess fabric, leaving only about 1.5 inches to 2 inches of fabric remaining.

3. Leaving about a half inch to an inch of fabric on the bottom, hand stitch the hem of the pants, beginning and ending on a vertical seam to hide excess threads and beginning stitches. While it is wise to sew with the pants inside-out, you should frequently check to make sure that your stitches are appearing correctly on the right side.

4. Once the hem has been sewn all the way around the pant leg, trim excess threads and turn the pants right-side-out to make sure that everything looks right.

If Sewing By Machine

1. Trim off any excess fabric so that you are only leaving about 1.5 inches to 2 inches of fabric remaining on the inside of the pants.

2. Press the hem into place using an iron so that the fabric is flat and study and you will have no difficulty following the straight line of the hem when feeding the pants through the machine.

3. Stitch with the pants inside out by running them through the machine. Begin on a vertical seam to hide the beginning stitches, as sewing machines require that you backstitch then forward stitch to begin your sewing.

4. Once the hem has been sewn all the way around the pant leg, trim excess threads and turn the pants right-side-out to make sure that everything looks right.

Tips & Warnings

• Always check and double check the length of the hem before you remove any fabric from the bottom of your pants.

• When sewing by hand, use care not to pull the stitches too tight, as this can cause puckering of the fabric.