Frugal Skills-Sewing! How to Sew a Hem.

I continue in my ongoing quest to teach you all how to sew!

Now, for those of you new to my site, perhaps those who have found me through the Ultimate Blog Party, I am not trying to make great seamstresses out of you all. To be quite frank sewing clothing from scratch-while a worthwhile pursuit, is not necessarily frugal. By the time you pay for the pattern, fabric, notions etc, not to mention the amount of time you spend in the making-well you can usually find something cheaper on the sale rack or in the thrift store.

No, what I am advocating is being able to make repairs yourself-being able to mend and alter your own clothes rather than having to pay a tailor or seamstress, or (horror of horrors) have to trash or replace an otherwise serviceable garment!!

So far in this series I have shown you:

The Philosophy of Mending
The Basics of Sewing (OK, actually this one was last year, but it has a lot of good info and should have been included from the get go)
How to Mend a Torn/Split Seam (with video)
How to Sew on a Button (with video)

Now we are going to cover “How to Sew a Hem”. Again I turn to that wonderful resource of VideoJug.com for a lovely video. I am just such a visual learner!

Warning-marking a hem is really something that you need a second person to help with. This is one of those things where your 5 year old really won’t cut it. Luckily it only takes a few minutes to try them on and mark one leg.

(Note: You need to click on the video below to activate it, then click on the “play” button to start playing it)

And, for an amazing tutorial on how to do the “magic” hem on jeans (ie to hem jeans but keep that original factor jean stitching!) then go to Dacia Ray’s Blog and read her tutorial! Warning, this is a technique that does require a sewing machine-but really truly all you need to do is sew a straight line, so pretty much anyone you know who has a machine should be able to help you with it.

I have yet to try this technique, but since I just bought the most amazing pair of jeans on the advice of Angie over at You Look Fab* I will be trying it very soon! When you are 5’2″ even the “short’s” are always slightly too long. I know the frayed look is in but personally it drives me bonkers.

*Note: If you have never checked out Angies blog, you should. It is totally not a frugal blog-she is a professional, well, I guess you’d call it “dresser”. She actually helps people pick out clothes that look good on them. She’s a “fashion pro. What I like is she talks about what things look good on what body types. When she was talking about jeans she talked about how the low rise jeans were actually not a good style on folks who had, well, shall we say “a little more around the middle”, and how she had been putting women who had a few post child pounds there into pants that had a slightly higher rise. Then in a later article she mentioned a particular pair of jeans, DNKY’s Soho Jeans. I called the Macy’s near me and they carried them. I went in and tried on 4 pairs (2 sizes in 2 colors) and bought a pair each in the dark and light blue. Yes, they cost $48 a a pair. But if you figure that they ACTUALLY FIT ME CORRECTLY, made me feel slender, and will probably be worn on an average of 3 or 4 times a week, well, the cost per wearing will actually be pretty low. I think that is a topic that needs to be addressed in another article soon 🙂