How To Hem Pants or a Skirt
It happens at inopportune times--the hem comes out of your skirt. Or you find the perfect pants, but the hem is three inches below the bottom edge of your highest heels. You shout at the sky and curse the fact that you didn't pay attention in home ec class (if your school even HAD home ec class) or that you didn't listen when your Mom tried to show you how to hem. Alas. What's a girl, or guy for that matter, to do? Never fear.
Hemming anything is simply turning up the edge and sewing it in place. There are several methods of hemming.
1. Fold the raw edge of the fabric up inside and staple it haphazardly in place. This is not a suggested method, but I see it done all the time. Yes, people notice. And regular old tape doesn't work well, so don't try that either. Please.
2. Fold the raw edge to the wrong side of the fabric and hand or machine sew the edge in place. This is a fine quick-fix, but the fabric runs the risk of raveling, so the hem might come undone again. Why may extra work for yourself?
How about some good solutions. Here's a good basic method for sewing a hem, along with some alternatives along the way. For the sake of clarity, I'm going to assume you need to hem clothing (pant legs or the hem of a straight skirt) and that you'll be putting in a deep (1" or more) hem, rather than just hemming a piece of fabric for a napkin or something with a narrow (1/4") rolled hem, like a ruffled skirt in lightweight fabric.
What you'll need:
Pencil or chalk to mark the hem
Small ruler (6" sewing ruler usually works great for this)
Sewing pins
Thread
Needle (for hemming by hand) or sewing machine (for hemming by machine)
Iron and ironing surface
Straight edge or 12" or longer ruler (optional)
1. Figure out where you want the hem to be. If you're just fixing a hem that has come undone, skip down to step 6. The turning-up step can be done yourself, but it is ten times easier and more accurate if you have someone to help. Put on the garment. If you're hemming pants, it sometimes helps to put on a pair of shoes that's roughly the height of shoe you'll probably wear with them. Stand on a stool or something if possible to get off the floor--this make things much easier for your helper. Have your pal pin the pants where you think you want the hem to be. You can fold the extra inside or outside--you'll figure out after a few times which way you prefer it. Pin both legs or all the way around if it's a skirt. For skirts, I like to measure up from the floor with a yard stick so I can tell the skirt hangs evenly--we all have imperfections, and sometimes that takes the form of one hip being slightly higher than the other or one leg being a tiny bit shorter than the other, so I tend to measure from the floor for everything--pant legs and skirt hems.
2. Remove the garment and mark along the fold with the pencil or chalk where you pinned. Connect the marks with the pencil or chalk.
3. Measure 1-1/2" up from the marked line and mark that line. If that takes you into the previous hem, remove the stitches from the hem and press the previous hem out so the fabric's flat. Cut along this new marked line, not the marked line made in step 2.
4. Here's where you have options. Some people like to finish the raw edge with a serger or zigzag stitch at this point. Others like to turn under 1/4" on the raw edge so the inside edge is folded over. That's up to you. If the fabric is likely to ravel, I turn under 1/4" along the edge and sew the folded edge in place. Either way, finishing that edge makes for a hem that should be much more .
5. Press along the line you made in step 2, pressing the extra fabric to the inside. For pants without a crease, sometimes this is easier if you roll a towel up and slip it inside the pant leg. If the bottom edge is larger than the inner edge, you'll need to ease in the extra fabric by making teeny little pleats. If the bottom edge is smaller than the inner edge, you'll need to open the side seam(s) of the garment a little in the turned-up area so you don't get a puckered line where the hem is stitched.
6. Stitch the hem in place. You can machine stitch it (recommended for more casual garments) or hand stitch it with an invisible stitch. There are many invisible stitches you can use--you just want to make sure that you pick up very few threads of the fabric on the inside of the pant leg. You can pick up more threads along the turned-up edge, but if you make big stitches into the pant leg, the stitches will show on the front side.
About the Author
Linda Augsburg is an Editor for http://www.FaveCrafts.com - a popular online resource for all things crafting, from free knitting patterns and free crochet patterns to Christmas crafts and crafting with kids.
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