Put the jeans on with the shoes you will wear them with, pin the length standing up, and only then choose the method. Measure across the leg at the original hem and at the new line: within an inch of each other, you can keep the original hem; wider apart, cut and refold. If you are short you are often taking 2 to 5 inches off a regular pair, and at the top of that range the keep the hem method runs out.
Decide the length before you cut
What is the perfect length to hem jeans? It depends on the cut and the shoe, so set it in the shoe. Singer says to fold the jeans up without cutting, pin, and try them on in the heel height you plan to wear with them. Madam Sew says they should barely touch the ground or hover about half an inch above it.
What is the perfect length to hem jeans? It depends on the cut and the shoe, so set it in the shoe.
Our rules by cut, from the jean length guide: a wide leg skims the floor with about half an inch (1.3 cm) of clearance. A straight leg grazes the top of your foot with no break; one soft fold is fine, two means they are long. A cropped leg stops just above the ankle bone. If you switch between flats and heels, cut for the flats.
Then check the pin. Madam Sew suggests a second pair of hands and photos from a few angles so the length reads even all round. Lay the jeans flat and match the second leg to the first. To measure a pair you already own, use the trouser length guide.
Cut and refold, or keep the original hem
Is it better to cut jeans or hem them? Both are hems. Cut and refold removes the factory edge and makes a new one, at any length. Keeping the original hem folds the factory hem up and stitches just below it, so the jeans look untouched. Madam Sew puts two limits on it: shortening by 4 inches or less, and no more than 1 inch of difference between the width at the original hem and at the new line, or the hem is hard to reuse. A flare has to be narrowed first through an opened side seam, which Madam Sew says is not an invisible alteration.
So the choice is a width test, not taste. Lay the jeans flat and measure across the leg at both lines. Within an inch and 4 inches or less off: keep the hem, especially a distressed one, which Singer's method is written to preserve. Otherwise: cut and refold.
Can I just cut jeans to hem them? You can cut, but a cut edge unravels, which is why Madam Sew suggests pinking shears, a serger or an overcast stitch on the trimmed edge. Cut and refold is cutting with a fold that hides the edge. If a frayed edge is the look you want, cut at the finished length and stop.
Method one: cut and refold
Singer's steps. You need pins, a removable marker, a denim needle in size 16 or 18, topstitching thread matching the existing stitching on top, and all purpose thread in the bobbin.
- Mark the finished length, open the old hem and trim it off, leaving a 1 inch (2.5 cm) allowance below your line.
- Fold the allowance up half an inch (1.3 cm), then half an inch again, so the raw edge is inside. Press and pin.
- Straight stitch at a medium long length, free arm mode, and sew round the leg at the distance from the fold you want. Our suggestion is to match where the old stitching sat.
- Thick denim, Singer's alternative: trim the allowance to half an inch, overedge the raw edge with all purpose thread or an overlocker, then topstitch as in step 3.
What is the easiest way to hem jeans? In our view, this one. One line, one fold, and the only thing you can get wrong is the length, which you settled in the shoe.
Method two: keep the original hem
How to shorten jeans without removing the original hem? Singer and Madam Sew describe the same fold in different words. Reconciled, it is three lines and one fold.
- Mark the finished length all round. Line one.
- Measure the original hem from its bottom edge to its topstitching. Singer says usually about half an inch. Mark line two that far above line one: the stitch line.
- Mark line three the same distance again above line two. Fold the excess up so the bottom edge of the original hem sits on line three. The hem now lies just above line two. Pin.
- Fit a zipper foot and stitch round the leg right next to the original hem, under the fold, without catching it. Madam Sew uses a longer stitch, 3.0 to 3.5 mm, through the thick layers.
- Try the jeans on again before cutting. Then trim the excess about three eighths of an inch from the seam and finish the edge.
- Press the seam up and the original hem down with high heat and plenty of steam.
Needles: Madam Sew uses a universal 14/90 or a denim 16/100 with heavy duty thread in a matching colour. Singer keeps the denim needle, with all purpose thread top and bottom.
Stretch denim, thread colour and pressing
Stretch denim changes three things. Brother's sewing manual says to sew stretch fabric without stretching it, to use a stretch stitch or a thread made for knits, and to decrease the presser foot pressure. Keep the denim needle: the same manual says thicker fabric needs a larger needle. Madam Sew adds: test the tension on scraps, and do not pull the fabric as it feeds.
Singer matches the topstitching thread to the jeans' other stitching. For dark denim, Madam Sew picks the darker of two close matches.
Pressing is the step that gets skipped and the one that shows. Madam Sew calls it Press Hard, because the original hem has to stay down. In our view a pressed hem looks bought and an unpressed one looks made.
If you are short, this is how much comes off
NYDJ's inseam guide puts petite, for women 5 ft 4 in (163 cm) and under, at 28 to 30 inches, and regular, for 5 ft 5 in to 5 ft 8 in, at 30 to 32 inches. Our size guide runs from 27 inches (69 cm) at XXS to 29.5 inches (75 cm) at XXL, with S at 28 inches (71 cm). A regular 32 inch jean hemmed to our S loses 4 inches; to XXS, 5. Even a regular 30 inch pair loses 2 to 3 inches.
That arithmetic is why this guide has two methods. Four to five inches is at or past Madam Sew's 4 inch limit, and it moves the width test: on a leg that narrows towards the hem, a line 5 inches higher sits where the leg is wider, so the gap between the two widths grows with every inch off. Measure both before you decide.
A 32 inch inseam on a 28 inch leg leaves 4 inches of denim at the floor, which in our view is why a regular pair never looks right cuffed. The alternative is to buy the length. The Birk Straight Leg Jean has a 27 inch inseam in size S, in rigid denim with a little give, and a hem that grazes the top of your foot. The Sena Wide Leg Trouser has a 28 inch inseam in size S, cut to skim the floor in a flat shoe. Every pair on bottoms lists its inseam. What petite sizing changes above the hem, in the rise and the sleeve, is in its own guide.
When to pay the tailor instead
What to do if jeans are too long? Three answers, in order of effort. Tonight, cuff them: in our view one soft fold is a wearable stopgap, two means they need hemming. This weekend, hem them by the method the width test gave you. Or take them to a tailor, the right call for an expensive pair, a flare, or more than 4 inches off a hem you want to keep.
Our alteration tips say it plainly: "Hems, sleeves and waistbands are simple and inexpensive to adjust. Shoulders, armholes and rises are not." Take the shoes you will wear, stand straight and ask the tailor to pin rather than guess. Say which hem you want: a standard hem or the original hem kept. Keeping the original hem is its own line on the alteration menus ThePricer compared, priced above a standard hem, and our jean length guide says the same: it costs a little more and looks like the jeans were made that way.
Know what a hem cannot do. It moves the bottom of the leg and nothing else. A long rise is on the alteration tips' list of things that are not simple, and in our view a knee that sits below yours stays there whatever happens at the hem. Return those pairs, do not alter them.
Set the length standing in your shoes, and the sewing is just following a line.
