How to Hem Jeans Tips on using an Entry Level Home Sewing Machine

okay I wanted to do a video showing the beginner how to sew a jeans hem and oftentimes I get a lot of questions from people saying that they've tried sewing them their needle breaks they're having trouble various problems and user has to do with a sad scene but let me go through the fundamentals first some of the most important things needle and thread are critical this is a good ermine jeans thread and the color numbers 1870 so it's 187 oh you can find this online it's called a jeans top stitch thread it's considered a heavy duty third for the home machines I'd consider it a medium duty for an industrial machine but anyway this is a good option for getting the seams and the hills to look the way you want them to get on them to match the retail jean color that you want there are two colors on this out order both of them and one of them's a little bit more orange than this one is and I may match your jeans but it depends on what you're looking for so anyway that's the kind of thread that you want 100% polyester and it's considered a heavyweight for the home machines next is your needle let me go through the various needles here this is a Smith's needle you can find this I've seen it in the jo-ann stores even the Walmart stores that have a sewing section I know some do and some don't but anyway if you happen to have one that does you may both on these needles there the difference between these two this one has two saws 14 - size 16 and one size 18 needle this is a good option to start with because it'll give you some some choices to figure out what works best on your machine this one is a size 16 only so all those needles are size 16 the reason I have this is up on the night my machines 16 works 99.9% of the time then so I've got both of these just in case the 14 will work and you say I've got 14 on a couple of machines and a 16 on another one that's not in here but anyway it gives me some options that allow you to test to see what works best on your machine with your thread and hmm let me show you some other ones here this is let me say this is the singer 16 seniors come in one size per pack they'll be a 1416 or an 18 that's a size 16 needle and singer I wanted to show you this so you don't get confused this is a size 18 but it's a universal heavy-duty needle it's different than a denim needle the denim needle has a different head on it it actually is shaped to pierce the denim it's a little bit sharper than what a universal needle is if this is your only choice it may work it may not you'd have to try it on your machine in your situation but anyway you just don't get confused if you see a size 18 and think that it's automatically a dental needle it needs to say denim on it or jeans for example this is the Dritz needle it only came in a size 16 there's only three of them in here but it says jeans needle so it's denim slash jeans but you can look for either one of those phrases and that'll give you what you need this I picked up at a Viking Center in a Joanne's store and these are all size 18 needles and so that was to counter my supply of all 16 needles so that way I've got a packet of all 18 says 18 needles ever need them also so in this particular case I couldn't find any size 18 in dreads but I found these size 18 pick them up just to have them so that'll show you the needles you need that shows you the thread you need and let's move on and get our genes together and go ahead and get the get them cut what you want to do is mark them you'll mark a chalk line where you're gonna hem it and then you'll come back and measure your retail gene size here and basically double it because you're gonna fold it under twice and I'll go through that in the next segment okay we've got our genes cut and when you're going to hem your jeans you're going to do a double fold so there's your all edge fold it under once fold it under twice if you've marked your jeans this would be your chalk line or the hem and you want to extend it if you have to 5/8 inch rolls you know extend it two times 5/8 that'll give you a chance to roll it under and you'll have your ham just the way it is from the retail store okay one of the things to note when you're hemming jeans you've got the inside and the outside seam the inside seam is a double felled him and that means that you're gonna be going through more layers of fabric on the inside seam which is we're going to start then you do on the outside seam which is nothing more than a search to edge and so this is going to be a little bit easier to go over then the beginning seam is so we're gonna start anytime we have on the inside seam and that's what we'll come back and and actually sew over a couple of stitches at the end to get it tight off and one of the things I've noticed on the retail jeans and I guess we'll go ahead and do it on this one is now we can start a little bit before the side seam and that'll let me show you how to get up over the side seam the big bulky one and some of the tools to use here are a couple of tools to use some sewing machines come with these there button attachments and they can be used to help keep the foot level when you're hemming jeans another device this nice is called a genome a jig and that's literally the name of it and one of the things I like about this device it's made for hemming jeans you've got a nice long groove here for the needle to go through so when you're going on the back my finger being the needle you can really push it up and let it so until it's off of it without moving it and on the front side the same thing you can put your needle up here and get it up under there good and then so until it comes off so it allows a little bit more room then say these devices do just a little bit more and that a little bit can help sometimes so these aren't very expensive and you can actually get on three different thicknesses so I'll try to post a link in the description of this video showing you how to get these in three different thicknesses okay the other thing is a piece of scrap fabric can be used to put it under the foot and you can fold it to get it thicker if a seamless thicker because this fabric will actually compress when you get it under the foot so you can just find a piece of scrap fabric just something that's thicker like this that I've sewed together I can take it and I can roll it up to get it to the thickness that I want to get it under the foot and achieve what I want so just any of that stuff will work the main thing we want to do is when you're going over those seams is get this foot level that'll give you a good stitch without step skipping a stitch and it'll prevent you from breaking a needle so all right let's move on the next segment where we actually get a set up to sew the jeans okay we've got our jeans here and we're ready to him I've got two magnetic guides set up here and what I do is I turn the seam under and I get it close to the edge by moving the magnets around and I line it where I want to line it one of the things I've learned through hemming a lot of jeans is when you get this lined up don't get it real close to the edge bring it in to about right there and then it'll move over just a little bit once you turn over and start hemming your jeans so don't get it too close to the edge and you'll be fine okay we're gonna start on the inside seam the difference the way you find the inside seam this outside seam is surged that side seam is always thinner than the inside seam that has a flat felled seam which gives us additional layers of fabric to sew through so we're going to start close to the inside seam since that's the one lacing it's less visible to the public as we sew around so we'll fund our inside seam verify that that is it and put it on the machine and we're going to start just before the side seam here that way when we come back over we'll be able to cover our original starting stitches which will lock them in place we get enough of my thread tails here working around a hold of all right okay the foot is down I'm going to manually turn the handwheel through this process and the reason I do that is it gives you more control over the side seam if you step on the pedal and try to go over to the feed dogs will kind of jiggle the fabric around and you'll end up with an inconsistent stitch and even skip a stitch or break a needle on one of these home machines so I'm gonna hold the thread tails I'm going to start stitching and as soon as I get up to the side seam which I'm there now I'm going to go ahead and let it penetrate and I'm gonna bring this little piece of fabric around to the back of the foot and use it to keep the foot level as I go through the side seam so just stick it under there and do a few stitches and when you see that it starts coming out or becoming unlevel you want to insert it in there but it it should stay until you get to the other side and you need to move your fabric around to the front side so we'll move it around to the front side now you have to be careful of what you put in the front as it's advancing that it doesn't advance of a needle and you sew into it so just keep your eye on it move it back a little bit lower the foot again one to another stitch over the foot again raise it lowered get my fabric underneath it and we're going to do this process until the back of the foot is no longer being raised up by that same and it's off now so once it's off I can start sewing we just want to make sure we get a good even stitch there across that big pig scene when you're sewing these jeans on these home machines don't go too fast it'll skip a stitch or something so just go good and slow okay I'm coming up on the other side seam this seam is not as thick and generally you can go right over it but just go slowly and what I'll do is once I get up there I'll turn the handwheel just barely press on the foot to help it along I want to go slow and make sure I don't skip any stitches and this one's not nearly as thick as the side seam on the inside is and so you can generally get over it if you have any problems use the same technique that I showed you when we started and once we get past it one more and we should be completely past it then they can go stop with your needle down I'm gonna cut my two threads up here at the beginning because we're gonna sew right over those and welcome in here we go okay I'm coming up on my starting point and what I want to make sure of is right before we get there I'm gonna turn the handwheel want to make sure my stitches line up perfectly with where I started so I'll get that seen just right in the middle with our presser foot and that will tell me that I'm going to sew over my previous stitches and lock them in place okay I've hit the side seam now I'm gonna hit the reverse button and I'm gonna sew two stitches backwards you want to make sure I stay in the same seam and bring it up and I am finished let's raise our presser foot to cut our threads okay if I can wind everything there's our starting and stopping point so you'll see the stitches lock there as we go around on the bottom side everything looks good our top stitching across there looks nice and even everything here's our second side seam everything looks nice and even it's because we took our time and went over it we don't have any skip stitches and the other thing you want to look for for tension and reasons is to make sure you're not see any loops at the top thread on the bottom or on the top you're not seeing any of the loops of the bottoms are at up there we want those to pull together in the fabric where we have a good strong stitch okay that's it that kind of shows you how to get around on a just an entry-level home sewing machine just make sure you have a size 16 or possibly 18 needle somebody's home machine struggle with a size 18 needle so I'd say try a size 16 generally that works 99% of the time and I think you'll be fine so let me know if you have any questions I'll be happy to try to help you out Oh

Channel: Kevin Sews

Views: 9,285

Rating: 4.8823528 out of 5

Keywords: Sewing

Id: -AtFX8jEhvQ

Length: 16min 44sec (1004 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 08 2018