For Short People: Hemming Jeans

As a shorty, it can be tough finding jeans. And even when you find a pair you really like and wear all the time - you end up stepping all over the bottom of them until they are just a big jumble of ripped, shredded threads. Ugh. Ugly.

So, you just wear the same old favorite pair of jeans until there are big holes in the knees and the back pockets are falling off. Or even worse, you settle for jeans that look bad on you, but hey, they don't drag all over the floor, right?

In the past, I have tried hemming the pants myself like they are a pair of pj's. Let me tell you, it doesn't work. They just don't look the same. Jeans have a special kind of hem. I don't know exactly what it is, but they do. So, I gave up hemming jeans...

Until now that is!! My friend Sarah taught me this GENIUS trick for hemming jeans:

USE THE ORIGINAL HEM!

Now, why didn't I think of that? I have done this on 4 pairs of secondhand jeans now and I am so very happy with the results! I got them cheap and they are the right fit! You can't even tell I chopped them up and put them back together. Hooray! Now I can buy jeans no matter the length! And all I have to worry about when jean-shopping is that the butt looks good and my thighs look skinnier than they really are.

Here's a tutorial for you:

1. Trim your jeans to the length you want them.

(I used another pair of jeans as a guide)



2. On the piece you just cut off, trim the hem off (about 1/4-inch above the hem).



3. Pin the hem to the bottom of the jeans, right sides together, matching up the side seams.

(You may have to trim off a little to make it fit right, otherwise you might end up with a pucker)



4. Sew the hem piece to your jeans. Sew right along the fold in the original hem (as shown in photo).



5. Iron the hem flat making sure your seam is pressed down really well.






6. If you want to be fancy you can serge or zig zag stitch the seam so it doesn't fray. I'm not that fancy. So, I just topstitch the hem down (right over top the original yellow-ish thread) making sure I catch the seam inside. So far it had seemed to do the trick.

(use matching yellow-ish thread and you'll never even be able to tell that you sewed right on top!)



You're done! Now you can strut your stuff around and people will just think that you found jeans that naturally fit your short little legs!

Little do they know...