Hem Your Own Designer Jeans While Keeping The Original Hem!!!

While living in Atlanta I discovered the awesomeness of designer jeans. My favorites include; Seven for All Mankind and Citizens of Humanity, but no matter which designer brand you love, if they are too long as all mine are you need to have them hemmed. The first pair of Seven for All Mankind jeans I bought I opted to pay the “seamstress” at Nordstrom to hem my jeans as they were about a foot too long. I assumed that she would do a great job since she worked at Nordstrom, but you know what they say about assuming! Apparently it is true. She simply cut off the extra material and hemmed my jeans leaving me with a $200 pair of jeans with a crappy looking hem. I still wore them because as a waitress at Mellow Mushroom I couldn’t afford to just buy another pair right away. It took months of saving my tips to even consider it, and even then I had to choose to sacrifice things like food and fun to buy theses jeans! But alas I did, because I just LOVE them so much more than any cheaper option.

Believe me when I say I do not enjoy paying ridiculous amounts of money for jeans that cost a few of those dollars to make, but I pretty much live in blue jeans year-round so I justify it that way.
Any who, so for the tutorial… After my experience with the seamstress who did not know what she was doing, I set out on a mission to learn how to hem my jeans while keeping the original hem, and do it so that it didn’t even show! And guess what? I did, so here I am to tell you how to hem your own jeans.
All you need is:

1. a sewing machine
2. basic knowledge of how to sew
3. jeans that are too long
4. thread that matches the stitching on your jeans (I found jean thread at Wal-Mart, and took my jeans with me if the thread was a different color)

Alright, first you need to get ready, meaning thread your machine and pin your jeans to the length you want them to be. Either have a friend do this or measure a pair of jeans that is the desired length from the crotch to the hem and use this as your inseam length. Remember that you will be wearing shoes, so take that into consideration and maybe put the shoes you wear with your jeans most often on while being pinned. 
If you have to pin them yourself, make sure you look at where the jeans fall in a mirror to be sure you like the new length.

Now, take jeans off and measure from the pins to the hem (DO NOT INCLUDE ORIGINAL HEM IN MEASUREMENT), stop at the top of the original hem (one leg at a time is easiest).
Next, you need to take this measurement and half it. This is when you re-pin right before you so. if you had a measurement of 2 inches, you need to pin all around the bottom at 1 inch!
When you have finished pinning the first leg, you are ready to start sewing. If your machine has a 1.)drop-arm , 2.)take off the arm and place your jean leg around to make it easier to sew. If not 3.)just be sure to not to sew all the way through the leg opening! 

                       

Now that you have your jean leg placed correctly on your machine, sew a straight stitch right BELOW the hem on the underside of the jean leg. See picture below.




Sew all the way around and don’t forget to backstitch a few stitches before you cut the thread off. Next, if you ever want to be able to let your jeans back out do not cut off the extra material, just tuck it under and iron it flat. I cut the extra material off as I am not ever going to be any taller, and here is what it looks like.





Be careful not to cut too close or the hem can come undone. (Lesson learned from my first try )
Whether you cut off the extra material or not now you need to iron your jean leg gently pulling them hem in several directions to get it really flat.
The next step is to straight stitch on the outside of the leg right ABOVE the hem, as close as you can without being right on top. This will make it look even more professional.
*Tip: While sewing go very slow to make sure your stitches are straight.
Repeat this process with the other leg!