Hemming Pants DIY: Quick and Lazy Method

Every year before school started it was pants hemming time and my mom was down on the floor with her straight pins. I can still remember the feel of the little tugs at my ankles as she folded under the excess fabric and secured it carefully into place.

Then out with her needle and thread, she would sit and carefully hand stitch the new hem in place. Bless her heart. If my mother had a nickle for every pair of pants she hemmed for all of us 6 kids she'd be a very rich woman.

Flash forward to present day...and my dislike for hemming pants. I don't know why it annoys me, but it does. Why can't my pants just be the right leeeeennnnngth?! Ok. Tantrum over.

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In-between bouts of whining, I discovered a way to hem my pants in no time at all. No cutting, no ironing, no turning under twice. Just measure, pin, fold under and sew.

*Note, this method for quick pants hemming works on pants that are only about an inch or two too long for you. I'll share a couple other methods at the bottom if you don't fit this category.

::How to hem pants the quick and lazy easy way::

STEP ONE: Put your pants on WITH shoes you will be wearing. If you don't measure your pants with shoes on, you may end up with high-waters...and we don't want that.



STEP TWO: Turn under your pant leg to your desired length (~1/2 inch higher than the base of your shoe) and pin the bottom edge. You can do this in front of a floor length mirror or use a helper.



STEP THREE: Remove your pants and turn them inside out. Turn all of your hem under to match the marked pin. This will become your new hem. The trick to this easy hemming method is that you do no cutting. You are simply folding under the excess fabric and sewing it to the underside of your pants.

STEP FOUR: With pants still inside out and new hem pinned, sew a straight stitch all around the pant leg, stitching over where you start and stop to secure seam.

STEP FIVE: Marvel over your clean, finished work (view from inside). *I lightened these images so you could more easily see the seams. The pants are really jet black.

View from the outside (your new hemline).












Even if your hemline is a little higher up on the pant leg (because your pants were longer and you had more to turn under), this method would work. Here are the pants without lightening the image. Jet black seam = hardly even noticeable.

I think I still have a pair of gray pants I never wore last year because I put off hemming them. Now I don't have an excuse!

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