When I think about myself, I generally think I am of average height. I don’t feel particularly taller or shorter than the people around me. I am 5’3″, which may be slightly shorter than “average” but it’s not like I spend my day looking up at people. (It probably doesn’t help that I teach children, almost all of whom are shorter than me due to their 20 year age difference).
So please explain to my why every pair of pants that I buy are too long?
If I had to pay someone to hem all of my pants, I would have spent a fortune over the years, just so I am not stomping all over the ends of pants that come down past my toes. Who are these people who can just wear pants off the rack? Am I the only person who has apparently abnormally short legs? Why can’t women’s pants be measured like men’s pants? Wouldn’t that save us all a lot of headaches?
I am very thankful that I have learned to hem my pants on my own. Before I had a sewing machine, I would painstakingly hand-stitch the hems of nearly all of my new pants. Now, all I have to do is pin them up and a quick zip through the machine, and we are done.
Except for jeans. You can’t just fold up the cuff of jeans and zip them through the machine. Jeans have a very particular hem-line that is difficult to recreate (not that I have ever tried…I just imagine that it is).
I followed the tutorial at this lovely site, and I have to say, I am super-impressed. I don’t think anyone will be following me around next time they see me wearing my jeans saying, “Um, excuse me, but it appears you have hemmed those jeans.” When was the last time anyone actually studied someone’s pants hem? And if you did notice that it looked a little different than you were expecting, would you really say something about it? No. The answer is no. This was not a rhetorical question.
The next time all of you nearly-average-height people have jeans that come past your toes, follow this quick easy tutorial and you will not be sorry.
