Below I will show you how I shortened a pair of work trousers by hand. I've found this to be the easiest method and it also preserves the original hem.
I had to shorten each leg by 5cm or 2 inches so I used my tape measure and very sharp pins to mark the same length at regular intervals on the right side of the garment.
Once I’d marked 5cm from the edge I just folded the 5cm hem into the wrong side. Below you can see a photo of the pinned edge :
This process didn’t take long and I preferred pinning to using chalk as it was much faster and I had enough sharp pins to go around. The fabric is very hard wearing and dense so it was a bit difficult to make holes.
I then transferred the pins to the wrong side and started sewing by hand using a whip stitch. The thread kept on breaking. I’m not sure whether it was very low quality or too old. Also the sewing needle was rather thick for the task. As you can see in the photo above it made some big holes but I reckoned they would close up once I finished.
The photo above shows you the final result before pressing the hem. I think it looks fine. Once I’m happy with the length and I’ve washed the trousers at least a couple of times I’ll be able to decide if they will shrink or not. This will determine whether or not I need to adjust the length. When that happens I think I’ll just use my sewing machine to strengthen the stitching because of the thread quality.
In case you’re wondering about the whip stitch I used to sew the hem, there’s a clear You Tube tutorial I found below :
Thank you for reading !
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