If you do stuff, stuff gets done.......

If you do stuff, stuff gets done.......

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Adding some length

Both my granddaughters are tall and long-legged for their ages. Their pants tend to be too short long before they outgrow the waist size of the garments.
These size 4 jeans belong the 3 year old granddaughter. They have those elastic cinches in the waist and they are drawn up as small as they go and they fit her in the waist OK.
But length wise, they were too short.
So, I gave it a go, seeing if I could lengthen them.

Jean hems are thick and hard to sew over so first I used a seam ripper to unpick that stitching. 
Then I pressed the bottom edge flat. 
I used a 2 inch strip of brown polka dot fabric folded in half and pinned it to the hem.

I sewed it on with a straight stitch and then pressed it again. 
I added 2 rows of decorative stitching but it does not show up much. That's OK though, because the stitching finishes off all the seams even if no one can really see it.
Hopefully the 1 1/4 inch in length added will be enough that she can wear these jeans a little longer, 
At least until she wears out the knees......

16 comments:

  1. That's a great idea....and they look like they were bought with fancy trim!

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    1. Thank you Betsy. Her little preschool is not very style conscious- so I don't think anyone there will be impressed with how fancy the jeans are. But high water jeans bug me and I am happy with this fux

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  2. This is a sweet idea! We did this to our jeans in the 80's kinda hippie style:)

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  3. CUTE!! They were selling jeans and pants like this for crazy prices at the Christmas show this year. Big polka dot ruffles were huge sellers

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    1. Thanks Debby, I like the big ruffle ones but daughter does not, so I went with something simpler.

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  4. Such a great idea...and cute, too.
    Reminds me that when my daughter was little, her grandmother crocheted the cutest pink jacket. As daughter grew, Grandmother just crocheted another row around the sleeves and the bottom. Daughter wore that little jacket for quite awhile and, OOO, how I wish I had saved it. bwaaaaaa

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  5. Cute! I am going to show Megan and see if she would wear them. She is now 7 and in 2nd grade so she is starting to share her opinion about what she wears... sigh. She is super skinny and can wear a size 5 in the waist, but has to have 7's for the length. They are gathered so tight that they look crazy.

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    1. Wendi, I hope Megan likes them. Elizabeth can wear 3s and 4s but needs a 5 for length and that gathered up waist looks funny and doesn't look too comfortable either.
      Another idea I saw was to cut about 2 inches off the bottom of jeans, add a strip of fabric to each leg and then sew the cut off bottom with the hem back on. I may do that on E's other pairs of high waters.

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  7. Those are very cute. Like everybody said it is the in thing too for the material on jeans. They are so lucky to have you!

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  8. i am back in the 60's when i used to chop bits off my trousers to do this. Cute as a button and it looks more like decoration than alteration.

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  9. So cute! I totally agree, it looks more like decoration than alteration!!

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  10. Very clever and looks very cute !! As to holes in the knees that's in style. Ha ha when I was young and you wore out your jeans from scrubbing floors and doing work, it was bad to have holes in your jeans and now they sell them that way / too funny :)

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  11. Very cute! I love the brown polka dot as trim. I also like the idea of the fancy stitching over the white stripe from the former hem edge. That makes it look like it was meant to be made that way. I haven't seen the ruffled ones you talked about, but I think I go along with your daughter on this one.

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  12. What a cute idea! Too bad, I can't do this for my son. His skinny waist and long legs are driving me nuts because I can't find casual pants to fit him. Thankfully, I can get the correct size in jeans, so he will have a nice pair to wear out.

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