How to Shorten Jeans and Pants the Margaret Way...

This is my mom.  She has been sewing since she was a teenager.  She was self taught as her mom didn't sew.  She can do most anything with fabric and thread.  Her Bernina sewing machine is only slightly my junior.   Needless to say it has seen a lot of action.  Relatively recent history has seen her employed as a seamstress.  The following tutorial is a process she created while employed with a large department store in  alterations.  It maintains the integrity of the original hem on the pants.  That means the frayed or finished edge the supplier worked so hard to create stays intact.  They didn't like her idea probably because it was too easy and there were not enough steps involved.  More likely would simply be that it was not their idea...

I find the idea a stroke of genius!  Max got a new pair of jeans yesterday.  They were a bit too large.  With the handy elastic and buttons now found in almost all childrens' pants the waist was not a problem to cinch in.  With "Margaret's Way"shortening the pants was not a worry either even as I started the whole process twenty minutes before we all had to be out the door on our way to Wednesday night church!  What I liked best was that Matt was flabbergasted as to how I shortened the jeans.  It put a spring in my step that after almost 15 years I can still surprise him!

1. Measure how much the jeans need to be shortened.  Remember the jeans are folded over so if you measure 1'' you are really shortening them 2''.

2. Put in a needle for heavy weight fabric.  I used a 100.  Sew along the edge of the old hem.

3. I cut off the excess fabric because I didn't want to make my serger do that.  I totaled my first serger making a denim quilt.  If I had been shortening a light weight pant I would have just run it through my serger.  My mom admitted that sometimes she doesn't even trim the excess or topstitch.  If you think you ever might want to lengthen the pants again skip this step.  I figure Max will tear holes in the knees before he gets too tall for these.

4. Here you can see the serged white threaded edge in the interior.  Mom also maintains you can sew anything if you have white, gray, and black thread.

5.  Here the hem is folded down and I am topstitching.
 I used brown thread because it was already in the machine.  I use brown for almost anything.  I got 4 cones of Maxi-Lock brown thread for 97cents a cone awhile back.  It pays to use quality thread.  It pays even more if you can get your quality thread inexpensively!  Cheap thread is just that, cheap.  It gives off a lot of lint and is hard on your machine.  I just had my machine in to the shop for a tune-up and he said it was so full of lint it looked like mud.  It took me a couple days to realize this is probably because I use brown thread almost exclusively lately!  Hence a lot of brown lint.

6.  That's it!  Super easy and it looks great.
Thanks, Mom!!