Hemming Pants on Off the Wall Friday

 Okay, I have some secrets and since we've gotten close lately, I thought I would share 'cause what's good having a secret unless you're going to share it, right?!?

Secret #1 - Although I love clothes shopping, I hate shopping for pants.  The reason being is that I'm so curvy....no I mean, really curvy!  Whether I'm a size 8 or 18, I'm still one big curve and it's pretty hard to find pants to fit those curves.  Over the years, I have found brands that seem to have the right waist to hip ratio to fit me, but even than it's pretty hit or miss.  Plus, stores have pants all over the place

- in the misses - in the petites - in the women's - it's crazy!  Oh and did I mention the price of pants these days?  So, to combat all these evil forces, I have returned to my first love that I learned when I was young and on a budget.  I stopped in  at our local Salvation Army.  Our Erie thrift stores (Sal-Val, Goodwill, City Mission and now  AmVets) are HUGE, well stocked and well organized.  What I do is grab a wobbly cart, pull about a dozen pair of pants in an assortment of sizes and then head to the fitting room.  In about 20 min I have found at least 5 pairs that are in excellent shape and fit nicely. Mission accomplished and it's Easy-Peasy!  Not to mention, they are all name brands, I'm supporting a good cause, I know the pants all wash well, plusssssssss I got 5 pairs for $28.  

Secret #2 - When I say they fit, I mean in the waist and hip which are the crucial parts.  However, some were too long. So even though I've owned a sewing machine for 30 years, I have no idea how to do garment alteration, even simple ones.  I mean, I imagine a multi-thousand-dollar machine should hem a simple pair of pants, right?  But honestly, in the past if I had to do it, I've done them by hand like my Gram. This week, I decided enough was enough and turned to source of all knowledge, YouTube.  There I discovered Dominica and her amazing channel for beginner sewers. 

 By following her tutorial, How to Hem Pants with a Sewing Machine using a straight stitch which probably is the MOST beginner of all ways to hem, I finally managed it.  With careful measuring and pinning, I did it right on the first try and found it all very approachable.  After doing three pairs, I think I got it down.  I know there are other ways to do it with a blind hem stitch but maybe I'll try that next time.  Not to mention, that when I was researching to do my pants, I found Patchwork & Poodles blog post on using a Visible Hand stitched hem which looks pretty darn cool!

The one thing that she didn't mention which made my life easier was I had my Gram's, sewing gauge ruler.  For 4 bucks it makes getting the measurements super easy.  Plus I used Wonderfil's DecoBob for both top and bottom stitching since the fine gauge disappeared into the fabric.

Okay, now I know a lot of you out there already are hemming your pants, but if, like me, you've been just rolling them up, I encourage you to give this a try.  It was much easier than doing them by hand and it gives a great look!

Ohhhhh and in case you're wondering.....Yes, I did have all the fabric I needed for my recent class on improvisational piecing and Yes, I did manage to get it all filed back into the proper bins upon return.  I also, used the excuse to give the bins a good once over.  That whole bin system is working out well and it's so easy to rearrange things here and there if you need to!

So, What Have You Been up to Creatively? 

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