How To Hem Bootcut Jeans
Jeans have a different material than your regular t-shirt, shirts, and dresses.
Although it is not difficult to hem your jeans, you cannot take the same approach you would do in normal fabric. If you get the method right, you will no longer have to miss out on your jeans just because they are too long for your length.
Read on because, in this article, we will help you learn how to hem your bootcut jeans perfectly.
How To Hem Bootcut Jeans?
Denim pants featuring abraded hem must be shortened with their seam. You cannot shorten bootcut jeans with the straight seam as the sewing lines are different. Here is how you can hem your bootcut jeans to suit your length:
1. Mark The Length And Get The Jeans Ready
Try on your bootcut jeans on both high-heeled and flat shoes. The front of the regular bootcut will be approximately 3.4 inches longer, whereas if it is bell-bottom, the front will be longer.
Once you have measured how much you need to cut off, using a tailor’s chalk or ballpoint pen, draw a straight line around 0.5 cm over the hem turn. This will be the bottom of your sewing line.
Thereafter, measure the shortening-measurement up from here and draw a curved line towards the front. The curvy line is the top of the sewing line, which has the same length as the bottom sewing line.
If the length is not aligned, the sewing lines will not match. There will be no material left between the lines.
2. Start Cutting And Spinning
Cut out the extra seam allowances in order to make sewing your thick denim easier. Make sure that you do not cut the seam open. After that, you can start to join both the sewing lines together using pins.
Ensure to start from the side seams, move towards the front-middle, then go to the back-middle and lastly pin the space between.
Additionally, to get the sewing lines straight, push them down the needles straight. And make sure it comes from the other side of the sewing line. And if that does not happen, you need to adjust the fabric.
3. Get To The Sewing Part
After making sure, everything is aligned, start sewing the leg, following the sewing line with the regular thread. Sew the length two times to make sure the seam is stronger.
Thereafter, try your denim to ensure that the length is correct while wearing flats and heels. If you feel that the length is not correct, you can make the necessary adjustments by opening up the seams.
After you are sure that the denim fits you properly, cut open the allowance but don’t narrow them yet. After opening the seam, iron it and sew a couple of millimeters from the seam.
Make sure that you sew both sides of the seam in order to hold the allowance in the right place. Now you can cut away the extra fabric of your denim.
13 Tips When Hemming Bootcut Jeans
1. Don’t Just Hold Them
When measuring the jeans, do not just hold them up against your body as you will not get an accurate measurement.
For instance, you will miss out on the curve of your tushie. Instead, make a hassle of wearing your jeans and then marking the desired length.
It will be difficult to bend over and mark the exact place. So if you can call friends that would be a great help.
2. Don’t Cut Off Too Much
Remember, you can take away fabric but cannot add more. When you open the original hem, you will notice that there is around one inch of fabric under the slack. That is hemmed into place.
Do not cut too much of this hem and pit the hem higher to save some extra fabric. This way, you will always have an option of letting them down again.
3. Wear The Right Shoes
In order to get the precise measurement, make sure you are wearing the right shoes. Wear the shoes that you are most likely to wear with that particular pair of pants.
Moreover, you should not put your body weight on one leg. Stand straight with weight equally distributed on both legs.
4. Practice First
If you are unsure how things will turn out to be, then you can try blind hemming first. Refer to the manual of your sewing machine to understand how to go about it.
As long as you have not cut off excess fabric, you can always start again and get the hem right.
5. Understand The Fabric
There are different varieties of denim, such as dark denim, heavy denim, light chambray denim, etc. The basic cotton twill can be stone-washed, over-dyed, and designed to stretch, so there are tons of options.
Moreover, it is also important that you understand the width of the denim to understand how much fabric you will need for your project.
6. Pre-Wash The Denim
Before measuring or sewing the denim fabric, make sure that you pre-wash it. This will help you to determine whether the fabric is shrinking or losing colors.
If you are working with extremely dark denim, we suggest that you wash it twice.
You can also soak the denim in warm water and vinegar to help with the colorfast process.
7. Getting The Right Pattern Choice
It is recommended to ensure that the pattern design you select complements the feel of your denim cloth. When it comes to denim sewing, you should stick to simple patterns that do not have much fullness or gathering.
Moreover, if your denim is cut-off grain, then the garment will get twisted over the course of time.
8 Working With The Frays
If the denim is fraying a lot, they are likely to serge or zigzag the edges to prevent fraying. When working with really thick fabric, it may be difficult to put each piece separately rather than folding the fabric together.
Ensure to flip the pattern in order to cover the opposite cuts.
9. Use Strong Pins
Denim is thicker material to work with as opposed to other fabrics. This is why you need to use stronger and sharper pins to hold the fabric in place.
Normal pins may not be able to provide the stability you need to keep the denim fabric in place.
10. Choose The Right Needle
You cannot use regular needles to sew the denim fabric. Moreover, you will need special denim needles for this job.
Manufacturers like Singer, Universal, Schmetz, and Klass are the manufacturer who makes stronger and sharper denim needles. These work great and easily pierce into heavy denim.
11. A Strong Thread
Selecting the right thread is necessary to get strong seams. When working with denim, we recommend you use strong polyester thread.
Moreover, you can purchase specialized jeans thread, but they may not be compatible with all kinds of sewing machines.
But if you are unable to find denim thread, you can sew using double thread. You can use a bobbin thread and spool together and move them through various points of the sewing machine.
This will give the denim fabric a double thread.
12. Give It A Good Iron
It is important to iron the fabric to get the precise cut and sew. If you can, use a steam iron in order to the seams flattened. This is a simple step that will make all the difference in your finished product.
13. Cut Facings
When working with thicker parts of the denim fabric, cut the facing out of the lighter fabric. Therefore it will set better on the sleeve edge or neckline edge. Moreover, you will not get bulky sew in the end.
Crafting has always been a deep-seated passion of mine, one that has flourished and evolved over the years.
I've dedicated considerable time to both studying and practicing in the realm of fashion and sewing, amassing a wealth of experience and skills.
It brings me great joy to share these insights and experiences with you all, hoping to inspire and foster a similar passion for the art of sewing.
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