Tell me you don’t have at least one pair of jeans sitting in your closet, waiting to be hemmed. You don’t want to pay someone to hem the jeans for you, but aren’t quite confident in your hemming skills. Hence, the jeans continue to sit… Sound familiar?! It’s time to learn how to hem jeans, my favorite way!

No more excuses! Give your wardrobe and your confidence a boost by hemming them yourself! This easy method of how to hem jeans is both fast and easy, and even allows you to keep the original hem. Your jeans will fit like a charm in no time, and soon all your friends will be dropping off their too-long jeans for you to hem!

Before you know it, you may even find yourself altering your jeans from bootcut to skinny or straight!

Got 15 minutes? You’re golden. Here we go…

How To Hem Jeans

Materials:
Your favorite pair of too-long jeans!
Measuring Tape
Size 16 denim needle (I like to use these needles (affiliate link) for stitching through the multiple layers of denim)
Thread

Instructions:
1. Ready to learn how to hem jeans? First, try on your jeans and fold the hem up (right sides together) to the length that you’d like your finished hem. Remember to wear a pair of shoes that you would normally wear with the jeans. If you wear flats most often, throw on a pair. If you like to wear wedges, go with those.

2. Take off your jeans and measure from the bottom fold to the bottom of the original hem.
3. Divide the measurement from step 2 by 2. Example: I folded my jeans up 2 inches in step 1, and divided that 2 inch measurement by 2 to get 1 inch. Using the new measurement, fold the hem up again and pin in place (remember to ignore the original hem when measuring).

4. Continue pinning each pant leg as in step 3, until both hems are completely pinned.

5. Using a zipper foot, stitch around each jean leg, through both layers of jean, as close to original hem as possible. Note: Do not stitch ON original hem, but immediately adjacent to it.

6. Turn folded edges to inside of jean legs and try your jeans on to make sure you’re happy with the new length!

7. Press the folded edges upward toward the inside of each jean leg. You can also sew a couple of hand stitches at each side seam on the inside of each leg to tack the folded edges in place if you’d like. Note: If you had to hem a large amount from your jeans (I’d say greater than 2 inches or so), you may prefer to trim the folded edge and serge or zig zag the edges to reduce bulk. Make sure to press each jean leg from the outside as well to give a nice clean hemline.

A couple of days later I opened my mailbox, ripped open the big white envelope, and found this gem:

The challenge? Make It Work.

First, let’s talk a bit about what I had to work with, the good and bad about the pattern:

Likes:
Considering that the point of Sabra’s challenge for me was to make something good out of a pattern that was, well, not-so-good, I still managed to find some positives to work from with the pattern. With even the ugliest or out of date pattern, you can still find some positives to base your finished product on. What I liked most about this pattern when I first saw it is that there was a tunic option. I’ve decided that tunics and leggings are going to be my mainstay this spring and summer, so I was excited to see View C, with a nice long length. I also like the overall shape of the top, as it is loose and looks like it would be comfortable to wear. In a shorter blouse length, the top looks fairly shapeless and out of date, but transferred into a modern tunic, I knew I could make the shape into a positive.

Dislikes:

Without getting into too much detail (we’ll save that for a post of it’s own sometime), I took my measurements at several critical areas – hips, waist, bust, shoulder, and a few others, and, after adding ease to these measurements, used the original pattern lines to make the pattern fit my measurements.

And cut each side seam apart…

Next, I assembled each sleeve and stitch them right sides together to the arm openings.

And the tunic itself was done (I do iron my clothing once in a while, just not before I took this photo…)!

Need a fun, fast, update for your hair? I can always answer that question with a yes, and was so excited when I spotted Anthropologie’s Brocco Bobbies:

My first thought was how easy it would be to make something similar. They aren’t made of anything more than a fabric yo-yo, a bit of ribbon, and a little bling. The best part is you can customize your own bobbies to your own style and preferences, and the possibilites are endless!

Let’s get started…

Materials:
1. fabric scrap – approximately 4″x4″
2. 1/4″ or 1/2″ wide ribbon scrap – 3″ in length
3. needle and thread
4. glue gun
5. vintage brooch or button (my pink and gold “brooch” pictured was part of a vintage bracelet I found at DI)

7. small felt scrap

Instructions:
1. First we’ll make a fabric yo-yo as the base of our hair pin. Using a bowl or other circular item that is approximately 4″ in diameter (the finished yo-yo will be close to half the size of your initial fabric circle, so adjust accordingly if you’d like), trace a circle onto the wrong side of your fabric.

But for around $100, why not make 5 of your own? My very stylish little sister Audy asked me to make a Maxi Skirt tutorial (she’s one of those people we all hate that can rock horizontal stripes). And since I might not have been cool enough to think of it on my own otherwise, I’m glad she did so I can share it with all of you! I hope you make a few of your own — I can’t wait to make another skirt in a print!

Materials Needed:
(affiliate links below)
1.5-2 yards 60″ wide knit fabric (hip measurements greater than 38″ will need closer to 2 yards)
2″ wide elastic (for measurement see below)
Ballpoint needle

The bottom panel will be 1″ longer than the top two to allow for a 1.5″ hem allowance.

To determine the width of each panel, take your hip measurement and add 2-4″ for ease and seam allowance, depending on how tight you want the skirt to sit on your hips. I only added 2″ to my hip measurement because my fabric was very slinky had quite a bit of stretch.  If your fabric has less stretch, you may want to add up to 4″ for ease and seam allowance. That will be the width of your top panel.

For the middle panel, add 10″ to the width of the top panel, and add another 10″ in width to the middle panel for the bottom panel (bottom panel will be 20″ wider than top panel). If the width of your bottom panel needs to be greater than 60″, just divide the width you need by two, add 1″ to that measurement for seam allowance, and cut two pieces that size. Right sides together, stitch the two pieces together along one short end of each, and treat it as one piece from here on.

Note: This skirt is VERY forgiving, so if your fabric allows to only add 8″ in width for each panel without piecing the bottom panel, or you want a more flared skirt and want to add a couple extra inches, go ahead. This is one of those few projects where you can alter the measurements a bit (excluding the length, of course!) and your skirt will still turn out great.

Here’s an example of what a person with 38″ hips and a desired length of 36″ from the bottom of the waistband would need to cut for the panels:

Directions:

A Few Notes Before You Begin:

• All Seam allowances are 1/2″.
• When sewing with knits, always use a ballpoint needle.
• I would normally use a serger when sewing knits, but wrote this tutorial with the assumption that you don’t have one. If you have a serger — use it!  It will work great.  If not, the great thing about knits is that the edges don’t fray, so finishing seam allowances isn’t necessary.
• If not using a serger, set your stitch length a bit longer than normal (2.5-3 on my machine), or use a very narrow zig zag stitch with a medium stitch length. A lot of machines also have a “stretch stitch” setting which also works great.

1. Overlap ends of elastic 1/2″ and stitch together using a zig zag stitch, forming a loop.