denim hemmin'

Last night I hemmed a pair of really awesome Express jeans for my friend Kenny, and also taught him how to sew by hand. I was so proud of myself for actually taking up a hem. Usually all I do is repair holes in stuff or sew buttons back on things, and usually it's old stuff, but this was a brand new pair of jeans he bought that were just a bit too long.

I was scared my sewing machine wouldn't handle denim--it's a lot thicker than most fabrics, obviously, but I'd also be sewing through four layers of it (the two hem layers and also the inner and outer seams). But it did wonderfully. And I thankfully had just enough gold thread to match (as best as I could) the thread already used in the seaming. While I sewed, I put Kenny in charge of taking pictures so I could blog about it.

I'm kind of embarrassed by my thin, blinding white, creepy-person hands, but they get the job done. I folded the jeans to raise the hem about 3 inches and sewed a new hem on the bottom. Professionals would've cut the first hem, but I didn't want to make any irreversible mistakes, so I left it. Seams can always be taken out later if need be, but fabric can't be put back on.

My sewing machine's foot, needle, and throat plate, and the new hem. Good as new, and saved the time and money it would've taken to have them altered. Yay!