A Craft A Week: Week 15 - No-Sew Pant Hemming

My time at home sick with Reed was first spent making him a Robot costume!  We took a cardboard box and covered it in Duct Tape.  Then we added a few "buttons" (stickers).  Lastly we added some Duct Tape straps so it could easily hang off his shoulders.

I knew I was back to normal when I had enough energy to start my hemming project on my new linen pants.  A while back I searched for linen pants on Pinterest (not sure why) and found these:

Clicking on them took me to eBay where I bought them for $19.99.  They are coral and have a Yoga pant top.  COOL!  I just needed to hem them up because I am only 5'1" tall and these were really long on me.

While sick I Googled "How to Hem Pants" and found this tutorial: http://www.womansday.com/style-beauty/fashion-style/how-to-hem-pants-113774#slide-1  I basically followed it, with a few differences.

STEP 1:  The website says to remove the original hem.  I didn't see the point in that because I was cutting off so much fabric, so I skipped it.  My first step was to put on the pants and fold up the fabric to the correct length and pin it.  Then take the pants off (this is an important step).  I pinned them all around the bottom where my hem will go and I pinned the part I'm going to cut off.  Then I wondered why I did that and took those pins back out (a few steps from now). 

(This is about where I stopped and took time off to feel icky with Reed.)
I knew I was feeling better when I picked up the project again.  Looking at the tutorial, the next step was to... oh wait, not only did I pin them twice, I also pinned the wrong side.  I quickly ironed them and reversed them and re-pinned them.  Ugh, I hate being sick.  Ok, now my next step was to get out the fabric pencil and mark one and a half inches from the new bottom.  This will be my cut line.

 Can you see my marks?  The pencil was red.  Nice.

Then I used my mom's old pinking shears to get a nice cut that won't unravel easily. 

Then I used a blind stitch to sew up the hem!  The tutorial will be real handy to show you this.  Basically you will only grab one thread on the pant.  It was amazingly simple and easy, you just need the time to do it.

I don't have a picture of me wearing the pants because A) it was dark in my room when I got ready for work the next day, B) my toes are ugly and haven't been painted, C) I then washed the pants and some of the hem has come out.  Well, it was my first time hemming; I'll fix it up and make it better.  Then maybe I'll give myself a pedi and take a good picture too.

UPDATE!!  I re-hemmed the pants and took a few pictures before I ruined them again.  I wore them to church as shown with one of my DIY cardigans I made before I started this Blog.

 

Well, it took me two weeks, but that's my "Week 15" project: No-Sew Pant Hemming.

I have a few projects I need to work on: finishing the curtain in my downstairs bathroom (I bought a curtain rod from Amazon, it arrived yesterday), I need to fix a mirror and re-hang it, I bought some foam board and fabric to make some wall art, and we have another walk/run coming up this Saturday: Race for the Cure.  I need to get Reed a pink shirt and make it cowboy/western-ized.  There is a project I've been eyeballing, but would take me a month or so: a shag/rag rug.  Here are some inspirational photos: