Reattaching a Hem...

I have a problem with most of my jeans... they are way, way too long... and when I get them hemmed, they come back looking like crap. The hem is too perfect and it looks gross. I've tried doing it myself-- I trim away and roll the hem up and wind up looking like I sent them to the tailor- yuck. I'd heard about reattaching a hem before... mostly in passing when I bring it up with other my-jeans-are-way-too-long-sufferers. Today must be a magical day... I finally learned how to do it, albeit in a rather quick and non-fancy way.

First, try on your jeans and cuff them to about where you think you'd like them. I go by the front middle of the jean and apply the measurement the whole way around.

Next, take a measuring tape or some sort of measuring device and figure out how much extra is on that cuff... note: DO NOT INCLUDE THE ACTUAL HEM IN THIS MEASUREMENT! If you do, you'll be upset later while you pick out the tiny hidden seam with your seam ripper. I personally hate having to use a seam ripper. These jeans had a total of 2.5 inches extra.

Next, divide that measurement in half... this will be the length you want to expose when you go to the sewing machine to start hemming. So again, for me, that length turned into 1.25 inches total.

Take that measurement and go around the length of the cuff and measure it out. You should be pinning as you go since this will help stabilize the material and make sure you don't get a wonky seam. I really like using a sewing gauge for this part since it will give you exact measurements and is much easier to use than a ruler or measuring tape... That blue part moves around and you can get a perfect measurement.

Now for the sort of tricky part... you want to get as close as possible to the underside of the existing hem to sew the pieces together. If you don't when you finally get to ironing, you will be really irritated with the way it looks and will, undoubtedly have to use the seam ripper, which sucks. You should also be careful not to sew the hem down. You may be able to wedge the left side of the sewing foot into the underside of the hem area to get as close as possible. You can see I didn't do that since the left side of my stitch foot is way too big and I could get closer by laying the foot on top of the seam.

Once you sew all the way around, you have to iron this new seam down... it makes everything look proper so be sure you don't skip this step! Flip that chunk of material upwards and iron it from the inside out... this will keep you from getting a weird heat mark on the outside of the jeans.

Now try them on! Make sure you got the right length and go back and make adjustments if you want. If you have a ton of material wedged up in there and it just looks weird, feel free to cut it out. It will wind up raveling though as you wash it, so if you have access to a serger or know someone with one, ask them to serge the edges.