Hemming a Wavy Hem - 16 August 2024

I’m currently trying to shorten these jeans. You can see in the sideways photo above how much I need to take off from the bottom; I measured 8.5 cm.

I have already carefully pinned the hem to the length I need and as you can see the leg design flares at the bottom which means that I’ll have to sort that so it all fits properly. Also because it’s a thick fabric and I’ve got experience trying to sew with that, see here, I’d like to try these on before cutting anything so I’ll probably ‘tack or baste’ loosely by hand before committing myself.

As I learn a lot by watching tutorials I’ve already checked online some options about hemming jeans like this:

Although the video above has no words and some (annoying) groovy background music it all looks very straightforward I could definitely follow exactly the steps shown. As an aside I tend to mute videos when the background music is distracting.

In this case unfortunately I don’t think this shortening method will be as easy as shown. The leg of the jeans is not straight and, and most crucially, the hem of the jeans I need to shorten looks clearly wavy :

That’s the sort of thing I wouldn’t notice buying or then wearing this jeans, but I do notice now that I have the prospect of trying to shorten them. Clearly it happens because the fabric is stretchy. The label is really faded so I can’t even read but I imagine the denim has got some elastane. I’m grateful the jeans fit okay at the waist and hips so I’m not complaining, but it makes things a bit trickier for me to sew.

The other video I found uses a domestic sewing machine and it leaves out the original hem by cutting it out altogether :

Considering the amount I need to cut out and the main fact that the lower edge will be wider and thus it will not just ‘click into place’, I’ll follow this tutorial and explanation as it seems simple.

I will come back to report on how well it’s worked - I’m trying the positive approach today.

Thank you for reading !