To do a "Euro hem!"
It's a sewing thing. I'm 5" tall - pants off the rack NEVER fit. I hate walking on my jeans and them getting all wet and dirty, but most of the time I am too lazy or too scared to hem them, so I just walk until I wear the heel right out (I know, you're thinking pants don't have heels - MY pants do!)
Thanks to our new car, we've been able to make a few long due excursions to Wal-Mart. They're having their end of season clearances so I stocked up on jeans. I have been wearing, I kid you not, the same pair of jeans for the past 6 months at least. I have to be sure to do laundry on a day I don't have to go anywhere! And let's just say they were becoming rather sanctified ("holey"). I was determined not to let my new pants suffer the same fate as my old ones, so I resigned myself to hemming them.
I did a little google search on hemming to refresh my memory and see if there were any cool tips to pick up. And I found this tutorial on how to hem your jeans but keep the factory hem so they don't look homemade. Apparently this is actually a legitimate technique called a European hem, that I'd never heard of. The other thing I really like about it is that you don't have to cut your pants; the extra material just tucks up inside the leg. So it's not permanent, if you make a mistake or start to wear high heels more often, you can let it back out. The last time I tried to hem my own pants I ended up turning them into highwaters and basically ruining them, so that was a big selling point for me!
I've already altered one pair, so I can tell you that it looks really good! There is a seam line, but unless you are down on the ground sniffing my feet, you can't see it. I took a long time measuring and pinning, but I still was able to finish both legs by myself, with no help (I did use a full length mirror to check the length and tried a few different pairs of shoes to be sure) in half an hour. Tonight I pinned up the other two pairs so they will be ready for sewing tomorrow. And then I will have three pairs of jeans the perfect length without that hand-done look or having to pay someone else to do it.
Just thought I'd share that since I know I can't be the only person here who has to hem all her pants! And this is a really cool method that I've now tried myself and can speak to.
nytquill17 posted on Mar 04, 2008
| views: 121
Comments
-
the_infernal_optimist said on Mar 04, 2008....
I, uh, don't know much about having to hem my pants. :-D I do have a pair that's a little long (due to my current girth being a bit more than is healthy for my height, still :-p - if it fits in the waist, it's long enough or a little over right now!), but I just cuff them at home, and they're not too long with my shoes on. And I live in the same two pairs of jeans, because I refuse to buy more "fat pants" than I really need. Never mind that I've been wearing them since June '07. :-p Shh.
Anyway, that's really cool that you learned to do that hem! Yay! Now you'll save money *and* be able to do it yourself pretty quickly, so you actually get to wear your new stuff when you want! :)
~Infernal
-
nytquill17 said on Mar 04, 2008....
Haha yeah, you leggity thing you! It's sad in my case when even stuff that's labelled "petite" has to be taken up by an inch or so. It's going to be hard to be a dignified old lady one day, being this small!
I know what you mean about the fat pants too. I only bought the ones I did because I so desperately needed them and because they were on sale. Though I did buy one pair that's just slightly too small so I can get a little mileage out of them as I lose weight.
Which I'm going to do. Definitely. Sometime...
-
Zayda said on Mar 04, 2008....
That's really cool that you learned how to do that, Nyt. :)
I'm at that odd height where average jeans are too short for me (most of the time) but if I buy talls, they are too long for me (most of the time). Although, I bought a pair of "average" black jeans the other day and damnit if they weren't too long, so I had to hem them. Weirdness.
It drives me insane.
I really wish women's jeans, here in the States, came in inseam lengths like men's do. -
nytquill17 said on Mar 05, 2008....
I've always thought that. A man can take a measuring tape and figure out what size clothes to buy. A 32 leg is 32 INCHES, that's easy to understand.
But what the hell is a twelve? Twelve what?
And then you have that whole thing about sizes between manufacturers and how they lie to you now about what size the jeans actually are. Granted I have been on the other end of that, buying jeans I knew were really size 14 or more but were labelled as 12s, and I felt glad to have my ego spared :p But in the jeans I bought last weekend, I bought a pair of 6P and they fit me about like my old worn out size 8s. On the other hand I also bought an 11 that fits about the same as the 6, and a 9 that gives me a muffin top. I know the odd numbers are juniors sizes so I expect to have to buy larger (women's jeans are so boring!), but seriously, what is UP with that? Poor DH had to wait on me while I tried on clothes for half an hour - and we're talking a quick "put it on, yes/no, take it off" for each item - just because I had to keep guessing at the right size. Ugh.
But at least I don't have to worry about the length anymore. :D
Comment on "Today I learned"
Related Posts:
Fallyn
posted on Nov 05, 2009
| views: 64
|
i have now broken 4 sewing machine needles in the space of 15 minutes.and the last one that broke feel INSIDE the machine..... a tiny part of it is poking up... but i can't grab it with my fingers.
i need a magnet.... or tweezer... read entire post