Friday, September 28, 2012

Tool of the Week: Hem your jeans yourself.

Some of you may find yourself, like me, purchasing jeans that are a bit too long. Most clothing is called ready to wear but that just signifies it is not custom, made-to-order. Truly there are few people who can go to the store pick any clothing out and have it fit perfectly. Fortunately, clothes can be tailored! If it is a complicated tailor, like taking in a constructed jacket, you may want to take it to your tailor, but if your jeans are simply a little long you may want to tailor these yourself. I have a few tips to make you hems perfect.
Try on your denim with the shoes you will wear with them most so you can get a good length.
Buy coordinating thread, typically denim gold is used but I have used red before and it looks like it was made that way.
Use the proper tools, I prefer the Jean-A-Ma-Jig by Dritz.
When I first saw this tool at my local sewing store, I wondered why I had never seen this before. When I first used it, I wondered how I ever lived with out it.
When you get close to the seam, stop, needle down, and lift your presser foot.



Slide the Jean-A-Ma-Jig under and then lower your presser foot.
Continue sewing and repeat at other seam.

No uneven stitches, no jamming up your needle on the seam, no wavy hem stitch line!

Just beautiful custom jeans.

2 comments:

  1. A very timely reminder of my to-do list as the weather cools off. I have a stack of pants (RTW) that are two sizes too large and need to be taken in. I put a pair on the other day since my normal jeans were in the wash, and not only were they too big in the waist, I don't remember them being that long! Perhaps I've shrunk!!! Now I need to not only adjust the waist, but also the hem! :)

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  2. Nice. I'll have to look for this. I can usually get several layers of denim under my machine, but making that transition isn't very pretty!

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