How to Shorten Hem on Jean Skirt
Hemming a jean skirt is different than hemming a cotton skirt. Manufacturers use a thick, top-stitched hem as part of the jean skirt design, making hemming difficult. Keep in mind, when hemming a jean skirt, that once the hem is taken up, meaning made shorter, you cannot let it out again. Making the jean skirt hem shorter requires cutting off the original hem, or the denim hem will take on a bulky, bunched up appearance. Measure the desired length carefully before shortening the hem of a jean skirt.
Things You'll Need
- Tape measure
- Chalk
- Jean skirt
- Scissors
- Straight pins
- Sewing machine
- Thread to match the top-stitching
- Iron & ironing board
Instructions
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1
Put on the jean skirt and measure from the skirt waist to where you want the skirt length. Measure one inch longer than what you want the length to be and mark the measurement on the skirt with the chalk. You may need another person to get the measuring correct. Remove the skirt. Use the tape measure to draw a line across the front and back of the skirt on your chalk mark. Fold the edge inside of the skirt and pin. Try on the skirt again to verify that this is where you want the skirt to hit on your legs. Remove skirt.
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2
Cut the denim fabric straight along the chalk lines on your skirt. Turn the skirt inside out.
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3
Fold the bottom edge of the skirt over ½ inch against the wrong side of the denim, and then fold it over ½-inch again so no raw denim is exposed. Pin the edges. This is the skirt hem.
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4
Turn the skirt right side out so that you're looking at the outside of the skirt. Re-pin the pinned edges so that you'll be able to easily remove the pins from the outside of the skirt. Remove the pins inside the skirt when you're finished pinning. You will be top-stitching the hem, so you'll need to work on the skirt with the skirt right side out.
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Insert the bottom opening of the skirt over the sewing machine table/bed, lifting the pressure foot and sliding the pinned hem under the foot. Put the foot down, holding the pinned hem. Using a ¼-inch seam allowance, and thread that matches the top-stitching of the denim (if your skirt has no top-stitching, which is usually a gold-yellow color, use thread that matches the denim of your skirt), set the machine on a straight seam, and sew around the bottom edge of the skirt, removing the pins as you sew.
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6
Iron the new hem to set the stitches.
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Tips & Warnings
Recycle the denim cut from the skirt into quilt pieces or save the denim strip to use in a rag rug project in the future. Denim fabric also makes great patches for knee holes in denim jeans.
Make sure your sewing machine has a needle appropriate for sewing heavy materials, such as denim and upholstery installed. When you reach the side seams of the denim skirt you may need to "walk" the needle over the "bump" as the sewing machine needle may not want to feed over the thickness of the denim. Use the wheel on the machine and manually rotate it, sewing the bump manually and without the use of the electric foot pedal.
