Capri Pants from Jeans

When I sew, I hear voices in my head.

There are two of them. One is super strict – “Slow down and cut carefully.” “Make all the markings, even those little weird triangle ones that you don’t know what they are for.” “Pin Everything.” “Press all the seams before sewing”.

The other is super lazy. “Go faster, I’m hungry.” “Who needs to iron, it’s going to get wrinkled anyway.” “Top-stitching takes too long and who is going to notice it anyway.”

I often let the lazy voice win. And way too often, I end up frustrated with a wonky fitted garment or something that took a long time but ends up looking homemade.

Recently, I decided to slow down a little and go the extra mile when sewing. Mom gifted me a great machine when she downsized, and it has a lot of neat features that make it easier to do things the right way the first time.

And my patience has been rewarded – first off with a new pair of capri length jeans.

I had a pair of jeans that I bought some time back that were totally not my style. They fit great (really great, which is why I bought them) but I was never really comfortable in them. Too dressy for casual day but too casual for work days. And, regrettably, they were expensive. They have sat in my closet for over two years, and I have put them in the charity pile more than once.

I decided that if I cut them to capri length, then they’d read as casual any way you looked at them. And as many projects go, once I got started, it wasn’t really that hard.

The main process is pretty straightforward –

Try on the jeans, and place a pin about where you’d like them to end on your leg.

Take them off carefully.

Measure  from the bottom of the jeans to the pin, and round off to the nearest visible marking spot (I have a co-worker who likes to take things out to the fifth decimal point, but when I sew, I like easy measurements). Then add a 1/2″ to that measurement. Measure up from the bottom in a couple of places and draw a line for cutting.

Hold your breath and cut one leg. Then carefully fold the pants so you can use that one leg to cut the other, which makes sure they are even.

Here’s where it gets trickier – the hem part:

I cut a piece of cereal box a 1/4″ wide to use as a guide. I used that to iron the first fold on the hem, and I pinned that as I went. I’ve seen neat plastic gadgets at the sewing store that would do this better, but this was my favorite price (free 🙂 ).

I then used that guide to fold the hem a second time, and moved the pins as I went so it was folded over on the inside. This is one of the places where my inner bad voice usually gets me – I almost always skip this part of a hem, which leaves me with an unfinished edge that will unravel in the wash.

Using black thread that disappeared into the color of the dark jeans, I straight stitched around the hem on the inside, making sure to catch the folded over part of them hem.

And then I went crazy, and actually changed the thread to a yellow orange to match the jeans original stitching, and ran a straight stitch top stitch to the outside.

I can’t tell you what a difference it makes. I’ll show you instead.

The top leg is the hemmed leg with no top stitch, which is fine, but somehow, just not “right.”

And the bottom leg has it’s top stitch, which even though it isn’t a perfect match, makes the look like the jeans came this way, and were not some sort of Saturday afternoon project from a crafter who hears voices in her head. 🙂