Turn Your Baggy Jeans Into Slim Fit! [0:00:00]
Loose baggy clothing doesn’t flatter anyone, no matter what their body type is. And make
no mistake, this applies to jeans. Now, I get it, you’ve already spent the
money, you’ve got a pair of jeans that you like the wash, you like the overall color,
you like the style. They’re just a bit too loose, right? Now, the good news is that you
don’t need to throw this denim out. No! We can salvage these jeans. With a sewing
machine and a little bit of knowledge, you can taper the legs of the jeans so they fit
perfectly in no time. So, here are the tools you’re going to need;
a sewing machine, sewing pins, safety pins, a fabric pencil or chalk, and scissors.
Step number one, measure and pin. Now, there are two methods that you can use to get the
right measurements. The first method is to use an existing pair of jeans that you own
that fit perfectly. Now, the jeans you’re going to adjust, you
want to turn them inside out and then lay your perfect fitting pair on top.
Now, for you information, there are many ways that you can actually slim up your jeans.
You can slim them from the inside seam or you could actually slim them on the outside
seam. We’re going to keep this simple. I’m going to show you how to adjust your denim
using the inseam. At the end of the day, the end result is just
as good and if you make any mistakes, it’s going to be much less noticeable when you
make the adjustment on the inseam. So, taking your two pairs of denim and then
lining up the outside seams and the crotch, you then trace along the inside seam with
a fabric pencil or chalk. Once that’s done, you’re going to go ahead and pin the fabric
in place to keep it from moving. Make sure the pins will be pointing away from you, so
they’ll be easy to remove while you sew. Now, if you don’t have a perfect fitting
pair of jeans to use as reference, you will need to figure out how much fabric to remove
by putting them on. So, turn the jeans inside out and put them
on. Now, go around putting safety pins on the inner seam until it fits as snugly as
you would like. Now, make sure to move around so you know that they’re not too tight.
What you don’t want to do is sit down and rip the seam.
Now, once you’ve got the pins in place, take off the jeans and lay them on a flat
surface. Now, you’re going to trace along the line of safety pins with the fabric pencil
and then make sure the taper smoothly transitions into the crotch or upper leg. An abrupt transition
is going to leave dimples and you don’t want it. Now, switch out the safety pins with
sewing pins and you are set. Step two, let’s sew. Now, you want to choose
thread that closely matches the color of your jeans. You want it to blend into the fabric.
Now, you’re going to use a straight stitch for the seam and you want to go with a 2.5
mm stitch length. Now, I do advice switching out your universal
sewing needle for one specifically designed for denim. Now, the universal needle can work
in a pinch, but understand it’s more likely to break when sewing through a tough fabric
like denim. Now, you want to make your first few stitches
and then go make a couple of back stitches. The back stitch locks in the thread and prevents
your stitch from coming undone. And as you’re going along, make sure to sew in an even straight
line. You don’t want to zigzag back and forth.
Simply sew along the line you drew with the fabric pencil, removing the pins as you go.
And don’t sew over the pins, they can push the fabric out of line if it hit the presser
foot or they can either break your needle if they get hit directly.
Now, if you’re new to sewing, use a slower speed setting, so you don’t lose control.
And if you’re more experienced, try a higher setting to speed up the process. Add a couple
more backstitches once you get to the end and then repeat the process for the other
leg. Once you’re finished, turn the jeans right
side out and then try them on one more time to check the fit. And if you’re not happy,
hey, you can start over, you can actually use a seam ripper tool to go through and remove
the stitches and start again. Step three, tidying up. Once you’re satisfied
with how the jeans look, now it’s time to clean up the inside.
First up, you want to take a pair of sharp scissors and cut off the excess fabric. Now,
you want to make sure to leave about a quarter to half an inch for seam allowance.
You also don’t want the new edge to fray. One trip to the washing machine without taking
care of this, you’re going to have loose threads all over the place.
To keep that from happening, you want to use a zigzag or what’s known as an over lock
stitch along the edge of the fabric to seal it. Run the stitch along the entire fabric
edge using a few backstitches at the beginning and end to keep it from coming undone. And,
boom! Just like that, gents, you now have the perfect pair of fitting jeans.
And guess what? You can use the same exact technique to taper the legs of your other
trousers to include chinos and dress slacks. But, what to do if your jeans are too long?
They need to be hemmed. Well, gents, check out this video right here
where I show you two easy ways to hem your jeans and get the perfect length.
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