I had a surgery today and was sick all weekend leading up to it so my blogging has taken a backseat for the past week. I am relieved to have the surgery done and look forward to getting back to blogging. I have so many things piled up and ideas waiting to happen. Last week the DH (Dear Husband) informed me he needed some cargo pants. Right now in Alaska there is not a pair to be found on sale. So I went to my favorite shopping site, Ebay! I got 5 pair of pants, 4 pair cargo and one pair of carpenter jeans all nice brand names for $45.00 including shipping. They show hardly any signs of wear and he is very happy with the pants except that two of them were just to long. So they have been sitting in the sewing pile and he has been wanting to wear them all week. Yes I am a crazy person that can not sit still for long and I am sewing while on pain medication, I do however have supervision, lol.
I wanted to share with you the easy way that I hem pants for my son and my husband who mostly wear cargo pants. They are a very forgiving cut of pant and are often un-ironed so I do not bother to cut and mark and pin. I can usually just fold the pants up on the existing hem and throw in a straight stitch. The hardest part is matching the thread. I also have learned to turn the wheel by hand over the side seams where the fabric is very thick. If you just try to run through it you will likely break a needle. I love a good deal on clothing and will hem a pair of pants that cost me less than $10.00 way before I spend $40.00 on a pair that have the right length and require me to take my husband into the store to go shopping. The less he knows about my shopping the better.
Also if you live in an area where boots are the norm for more than half the year like Alaska, then keep the length a bit longer than if wearing loafers or sneakers. I find that with boots a hem that is just a bit longer looks better as you will see I hemmed these pants just to the floor.
With this pair there was a double stitch, you can get a fancy top stitch double needle or you can just run one stitch then a second to get the same effect.
Hemming, patching and repairing of seams in clothing is a great way to save money. I find that on my daughters favorite tops they get a hole in the seam and it is easily fixed avoiding a trip to the mall and saving me $$. I have also become the team mom for cheerleading and have found my basic sewing skills to be enough to take apart the uniforms and tailor them to the girls for a better fit. I highly suggest taking a basic sewing class if you are a slave to purchasing new clothing to replace items that could be easily repaired. I use a $69.00 sewing machine from Wal-Mart, nothing fancy but it gets the job done.
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