Hemming and Hawing (166th new thing).

I had worn my folded cuff capris several times since originally trimming the leg wear from jeans. On Day One Hundred Sixty-six, it was finally time to ditch the cuff look and hem them, something I had never done before.

I started with a pair of Patrick’s shorts that he wanted shortened. If I messed those up, at least it wasn’t my favorite pants, right? Fortunately, I did ok. I folded up the bottom cuff and ran the fabric through my sewing machine. The additional fabric at the new hem felt a little heavy, but I thought that was an easier method then breaking the factory seam and starting from scratch. He seemed pleased enough with them, so I continued on with my own clothing.

I folded the bottom (now slightly frayed) material twice and ironed the crease. My method wasn’t very precise, so I hoped that the resulting lengths of the legs would match. And then I ran the fabric through the machine, just as I had Patrick’s. I stuck with the white thread because I was too lazy to change it I thought it looked alright. Kind of like it was an intentional design element.

They turned out well enough, especially since this was my first attempt at hemming anything. The length of each leg was about the same, or close enough to not draw attention to the discrepancy. And the white thread looked pretty good. The only real problem was where I hadn’t included the very bottom of the fabric in the fold over/ironing process, but I remedied that over the next few days by sneakily cutting off the offending frayed material hanging out. Very DIY.

I feel a bit proud, walking around in a garment I had some sort of hand in making. Even if it was just a chop, a fold, and a sew.