Video: How to Sew a Hem on Pants

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Save money on alterations and hem pants by yourself. Our expert will show you how with great sewing tips for hemming pants in this free clothing care video.

- Picking Thread Thickness for Hemming Pants
- How to Sew a Hem on Pants

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Comments

Sarah Fishburn Dec 19, 2010
It doesn't matter that you can't see what's going on with the sewing because the guy is attractive.
adco88 Oct 19, 2010
This is the worst video in the history of instructional videos. The camera is so far away, you can't see anything this moron is doing! I can see what appears to be speakers on his fireplace. What do they have to do with sewing? He has dark pants on dark table...brilliant!
adco88 Oct 19, 2010
This is the worst video in the history of instructional videos. The camera is so far away, you can't see anything this moron is doing! I can see what appears to be speakers on his fireplace. What do they have to do with sewing? He has dark pants on dark table...brilliant!
padmanandini Aug 02, 2008
Hi I appreciate .Can you give the close up shot of the actual stitching and the material instead of focusing on the person. I dont know how to sew a anchor stitch and how actually it holds the other(does it mean the hemming) stitches
padmanandini Aug 02, 2008
Hi I appreciate .Can you give the close up shot of the actual stitching and the material instead of focusing on the person. I dont know how to sew a anchor stitch and how actually it holds the other(does it mean the hemming) stitches

Video Transcript

In this next clip I am going to be showing you how to hem the cuff of pants. In this case specifically men’s slacks. So once you’ve done all the preparatory steps which I have already shown you and we are ready to take our needle and thread and go to work. You want to take back part of the cuff that is pinned and you want to just start what is called anchor stitch and all that implies is just going through the material at the edge of it. This would be at the very base of the cuff before you folded it and pulling the thread through creating a stitch that is going to hold the rest of the stitches. You can just do this by going through the same area twice but in a second time coming around you just want to pass the needle through the loop of the thread to create a knot and when you pull that tight, it is going to create a nice anchor into the material that will hold almost any stitch. So to begin hemming you are on the backside of the cuff, you want to just grab a little bit of the material of the pant. You don’t want to go all the way through it because then the hem would show. In the case of a skirt or other dresses or any type of material that you want to wear the hem and actually show it off, you would be more concerned with the actual hem pattern and making sure that it is tight and goes consistently around the entire length of the material. In this case, it is not as relevant because it is not going to be shown. I am also using white thread here so that you can see the stitching but normally I would use black obviously because it would be hidden by the material of the pants. I want to grab a little bit of the material. Just a few strands of thread not going all the way through and pull the thread tight and that is going to secure it to the actual leg of the pant. Then you want to in a circular threading pattern go back and forth looping through the same motion that I just did. When you are pulling the thread through, you also want to double back on the other side of the thread. As you are grabbing some of the material, you want to double back because it is going to cause the stitch to be more secure. If you don’t do that, then as the pant leg moves around it is going to loosen the threading and unravel back toward the anchor stitch. So you just want to double back which causes it to tighten down and form like a little x-pattern as you can see there. And once you continue this around the entire cuff, you would tie it off which I will show you in another clip and then you would be able to actually wear the pants after that.

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How to Sew a Hem on Pants

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