Hem Jeans The Easy Way

I am a very short woman!  ( 5 ft. ) No matter where I buy my jeans or pants, they are almost always too long.  I recently found a neat way to hem pants that involves no cutting and it is sooo easy.  Best of all, you can’t tell that they have been hemmed because you keep the original hem.  

I always disliked the look of my jean hem when I cut off the bottoms and hemmed them up. It just takes away the character of an original jean hem. I am going to run through the steps for this technique. It is called a French hem. The jeans that I am hemming in the photos are a pair that I bought at the local Goodwill store. (Being thrifty!)

Step 1: Try on your jeans with the shoes that you will most likely be wearing with them. Cuff up the bottoms of your jeans to the length that you like to wear them. Put a pin in each leg to hold your cuff in place and carefully remove your jeans.

 Step 2: Measure the width of your cuff. From the bottom of the original hem to the folded edge where you cuffed your jeans. My measurement was 2 1/4″. I need these jeans to be shorted by 2 1/4″. See photo below:

 

Step 3: Now divide that figure in half. My figure of 2 1/4″  divided by two is 1 1/8″.  Fold, measuring your cuff to your new figure, mine is 1 1/8″ ( DO NOT INCLUDE THE ORIGINAL HEM WHEN MEASURING AND FOLDING IN THIS STEP! ) and pin in place. Measure and pin all the way around the leg.  See photo below:

 

Step 4: Attach your zipper foot to your sewing machine if you have one and make sure your needle is in the right position so that you do not hit the zipper foot. Also, remove the free arm attachment if applicable.

Now stitch all the way around the leg as close to the edge of the original hem as you possibly can with out actually sewing on it. Be very careful and go slowly over the side seams. They are very thick and going to fast can cause a broken needle! See photos:

 

 Step 5: Now turn your newly created hem to the inside and iron. See photos:

   

Step 6: Carefully top stitch around the leg just to the left of the new seam that you just created. This makes the hem lay better. See photo:

 

Step 7: Now would be a good time to try your jeans back on and make sure that you are happy with the length. If not, rip out seams and try again. If you are happy with the results, repeat steps 1-6 for the other leg.

Step 8: Now you can either leave the excess material inside your jeans as is and just fold or iron it up after washing, or trim it off.  I use fusible hemming tape an fuse the material up toward the waist on the inside. See photos:

 

You are done! Now you have a professional looking hem on your jeans… No one will ever know that you hemmed them. : ) I hope I have explained the steps clearly. Leave a comment and let me know how it worked for you!

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