How do I shorten jeans and keep the original hem?

Hemming jeans normally means cutting off the bottom and turning up a new hem, which loses the thing that makes jeans look like jeans: the heavy gold topstitching, the tight-woven original edge and the fading around it. This method — sometimes called a European hem — takes the length out just above the hem and puts the original edge back where it was. It is not difficult, but the arithmetic catches people out, so do that part slowly.

What you'll need

• A jeans or denim needle, size 90 or 100
• Strong polyester thread, matched to the denim rather than the topstitching
• A tape measure and pins
• An iron
• A seam ripper
• A hump jumper or a folded scrap of denim, for the seam crossings (optional)

Step by step

1. Work out the finished length with the jeans on.Wear the shoes you will wear with them. Fold the leg up to where you want it to end and pin. Take them off and lay them flat.
2. Measure how much length you are removing.The distance from the original hem edge up to the new finished length. Write it down. This is the number everything else depends on.
3. Halve it — that is your fold depth.Because folding the leg up puts two thicknesses of fabric into the tuck, the fold consumes twice its depth. To lose 5cm of length you fold up by 2.5cm. Getting this wrong by folding the full amount is the single commonest error and it produces jeans half as short again as you wanted.
4. Fold the leg up by that half amount and pin.Turn the leg up on itself so the original hem now sits above the new finished length line by the fold depth, with the fold at the bottom. Pin all the way round, matching the side seams so the tuck is even. The jeans should look like they have a turn-up.
5. Check the length before you sew anything.Try them on. The bottom of the fold is where the jeans will end. If it is not right, unpin and adjust — this is far easier now than after stitching.
6. Stitch a row just above the factory topstitching.About 2 to 3mm above the original hem's own stitching, all the way round the leg, through the tuck. Use a long stitch — 3 to 3.5mm — and go slowly. Backstitch to start and finish, overlapping by a couple of centimetres.
7. Get past the side seams carefully.The outside and inside leg seams are the thickest point and often six or more layers. Handwheel through them rather than driving with the pedal, and use a hump jumper or a folded scrap of denim behind the foot to keep the foot level as it climbs.
8. Trim the excess above your new row.Cut the tuck away leaving about 1cm of allowance above the stitching. Grade it back further where it crosses the side seams so the bulk does not stack up.
9. Finish the cut edge.Zigzag or overcast the trimmed allowance. It is inside the leg and never seen, but denim frays generously and an unfinished edge will shed threads for years.
10. Unfold, press the allowance upwards, and press the hem.Push the trimmed allowance up inside the leg and press hard with steam. The original hem is now at the new length and the only evidence is a fine row of stitching a few millimetres above it, which mostly disappears into the fold.
11. Optionally distress the new fold line.On heavily faded jeans the transition can look slightly too crisp. A light rub with fine sandpaper along the fold, done cautiously and checked often, settles it in.

Tips

• Match the thread to the denim, not to the gold topstitching. You want the new row to disappear, not to compete with the original.
• If you have to remove a lot of length — more than about 8cm — the leg will start to taper noticeably at the new hem because the leg narrows towards the ankle. Beyond that, a conventional hem or a proper leg alteration is better.
• Sew with the jeans leg tube around the free arm of the machine if it has one. Trying to sew a leg flat will catch the back of the leg into the stitching.
• Check inside the leg before every seam crossing that you have not caught the back of the leg into the row.

Common mistakes

• Folding up by the full amount to be removed — The fold takes the fabric twice, so folding by the full amount removes twice as much length as intended. Halve it, every time.
• Using an ordinary universal needle — Denim at a seam crossing is several thick layers. A universal needle deflects, skips and snaps. A jeans needle has a stronger blade and a sharper point made for it.
• Sewing through the seam crossings at speed — The foot tilts as it climbs the step, the needle deflects and breaks, and on a bad hit the machine can be knocked out of timing.
• Not checking the length by wearing them before stitching — The tuck is easy to adjust while pinned and a genuine nuisance to unpick from denim afterwards.

If it doesn't work

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