Hemming Cuffed Pants

First things first....Happy New Year!! I hope you've all enjoyed a restful holiday and had extra time to enjoy you favorite passions. I spent a lot of time knitting and spinning (something new for me.) Don't most of us enjoy more than one fiber hobby? I made 3 fair isle tammies for gifts, including some of my first homespun in one, and also gifted two skeins of homespun to a dear friend. For another dear friend, and my son's sweet girlfriend, I made beaded knitting stitch markers. So, I have had busy hands, though not sewing.

Today I have to ease myself into working again so I'm doing only one thing...hemming a pair of cuffed pants. There are several ways to think through the process, including one particularly easy to manage method described in Mary Roehr's Altering Women's Ready to Wear. I used this book almost daily when I started alterations and still refer to it periodically when I need to reassure myself about some complex alteration.

The method I'll describe for you here is different than Ms. Roehr's but is how I handle the process lately. Here goes:

1. Record these things:

• Amount you need to shorten each leg
• Depth of hem (bottom of pants to raw or finished edge of hem allowance inside pant leg)
  
• Depth of cuff (bottom of pants to top fold of cuff outside pant leg)
  

2. Release any tacking that has been done to keep cuff upright.

3. Rip old hem stitching. Fortunately, machine blind-stitched hems can be "unzipped" easily. Press hems flat.

4. Cut off the amount by which you must shorten each leg. (I like to do this with each leg laying flat, inseam and outseam lined up on top of eachother, and using a quilting ruler and rotary cutter.)

5. Re-finish the raw hem edges by serging, taping, pinking, or zigzagging.

6. Press up, to the inside, the hem depth PLUS the cuff depth. If the hem depth is 1 1/2" and the cuff depth is 2" than you will be pressing 3 1/2" to the inside. Pin baste.

7. Stitch the hem as desired.

8. Fold and press cuff depth to the outside of the leg.

9. Tack cuff up by hand or machine. I usually place a few machine stitches "in the ditch" of the cuff/pant leg, through all layers, at inseams and outseams.

Essentially what you are doing with this method is recording how the hem was made, deconstructing it, cutting off the amount to be shortened, and then re-constructing the hem just as it was made.

Lately, with much deeper cuffs being popular, I have several times encountered cuffs that are actually separate bands of fabric sewn to the bottom of the pants and folded to mimic cuffs but with much less bulk than traditional cuffs would produce. When I hem these, I record the same measurements as above. Then, I take apart one cuff and record the depth of the seam allowance where the band is sewn on. I cut off the required amount from the actual pant leg, than simply re-attach the cuff band in the same way it was. By taking apart only one leg at a time I can always use the other as a guide during re-construction.