I may be the only person still wearing boot-cut jeans these days.. but I had to retire some pairs of jeans recently and in a pinch one day (it was a classic day in our house where laundry was back-logged, I didn’t have time to go on a hunt for the perfect pair of jeans, and didn’t want to spend a fortune either..) so I dusted off this pair of Silver jeans which were too long and had been sitting in my closet for a few years..

I hemmed them using a quick and easy, no-cut, technique – this is not the “fold under and sew” way, which removes the bottom edge!

Here’s how!

First put jeans on and measure exactly how much you need to shorten them by. For example if you want to take an inch off, you’ll fold up a big cuff and then pin the 1″ into the bottom portion of the cuff (1/2″ front/back). Once you’ve pinned it, turn the cuff down, try the jeans back on to make sure the seam is going to hit where you want it and the length is good.

Fold up jeans as shown – your seam will be where the legs get shortened – so determine first how much you are needing to hem them by. I took an inch off these.

After you’ve sewn the cuff inside out, fold it over and sew a security seam to pin down the fold and create an edgier look (also see above).

Once sewn, flatten, pin the fold downward and sew another security seam to create a bit of an edge and set the fold.

Successful shortening of the jeans! 🙂