Category Archives: Tips and Tricks

sewing, Tips and Tricks, tutorial, Tutorials

Jean Hemming Tutorial!

Now that I’ve taken up and hemmed at least 4 pairs of jeans, I feel confident enough to post a tutorial to help other people out with it! It’s really easy once you know what you’re doing, and there’s no way you’ll pay anyone to do it for you again! You will need the following items:

  • Jeans, trousers, or whatever else you want to take up/hem

  • Scissors

  • Thread

  • A measuring tape

  • Hemming tape (optional)

  • Pins

  • A sewing machine (or needle if you prefer to hand sew

  • An iron

So! Without further ado, let’s get on with the tutorial.

First of all, grab your jeans, and put them on. I highly, highly recommend washing them first, to see how much they shrink. Once you’ve put them on, you’ll need to fold up the hem and pin it so your jeans are at your desired length. It’s really helpful to get someone to do this for you – I use my husband. Standing on a chair is good, too, so they can have better access to the bottom of your jeans. It’s also a good idea to wear the shoes you’ll probably wear most with your jeans. I’m not wearing any shoes here because I’m lazy 😛

Now, take off your jeans, and measure the length of the upturned hem. Mine was 7.5 inches. Yes, I’m very short. Now, I like to leave 1.5 inches for making the new hem of the jeans, so I would cut 5.5 inches off the bottom of the jeans. You can have a smaller or larger hem, it’s up to you, just remember to allow that extra fabric to make your hem when you cut your jeans. I usually mark my cutting line in tailor’s chalk, because I’m terrible at cutting in a straight line.

Now, cut your jeans! Remember the old saying, measure twice, cut once. Trust me on this. You really want to make sure you’re only cutting off what you measured, or else you’re going to have very cold ankles!

Now, fold up the new bottom of your jeans about an inch, and press. If you choose to use hemming tape, this will make the process slightly easier. Make sure it’s even all the way around. Then, fold up another inch and press again. At this point, I like to try the jeans on again just to triple check they’re the right length. If you press the hem enough, you should be able to try them on without it falling down.

Now, take to the sewing machine! I use thread to match the jeans, but if you’re certain of your ability to sew in a straight line, you could use contrasting thread for a different look. Sew at the top of the hem, not the bottom, to make it neater and more secure. Sew all the way around, backstitching at the start and finish.

Voila! You should now have a pair of nicely-hemmed, perfect length jeans! I hope this tutorial was easy enough to understand, and that some of you found it useful 🙂

 

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links, tips, Tips and Tricks

Just a quickie…

I just found the most amazing website!

It’s called Spoonflower, and boy, is it dangerous (especially since the Australian dollar just hit parity with the US dollar). I’ve just spent a good twenty minutes adding wonderful, adorable fabric to my wishlist. Basically, it’s a website where you can upload a design and have it printed on fabric. Or, for those bad at drawing (like myself), you can simply purchase other peoples’ designs! If you’re a designer, you get a discount on what you buy. Go and check it out, it’s super awesome!

I also found Knitmap – a place where you can find yarn stores close to you, and track them, and plan yarn road trips, and all kinds of wonderful things! Plus, they have an iPhone app you can get, and since my Dad just offered me his old iPhone for a mere $150…well,  I think I might be buying quite a bit more yarn in the near future!

Now, I’m about to reformat my computer, since it’s being all unhappy and blue-screening on me, so fingers crossed it all goes well and I’ll be back to post about my latest project! Bye!

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sewing, tips, Tips and Tricks

Svenska sömnad

Yesterday I popped into one of my favourite places to shop – IKEA! I had heard that they had fabric there, and I was getting a little tired of seeing the same old stuff at Spotlight, so I decided to go and check their range out. Oh, and pick my brother up some chest of drawers, but that’s not important.

As it happened, IKEA had an awesome range of adorable fabric, and I ended up buying three different prints, with which I plan to make utterly fantastic bags. But as wonderful as the fabric is, that’s not the reason why I’m making this post. I’m making this post because while I was there, I happened to see a brilliant little sewing kit, and I just had to buy it. It’s called a beginner’s sewing kit, and it is terrific value.

Sewing Kit

Contained within this magnificent kit were the following:

– A pair of dressmaking scissors

– A packet of various-sized needles, at least twenty of them (not pictured)

– A tape measure

– A little tub of pins with a pincushion on top

– 1000 metres of black and white sewing thread

– A seam unpicker

All of that, and the little box it came in, cost a grand total of $9.95. The scissors feel really good, and I’ve already tested them out! They’re quite weighty and definitely feel like quality scissors. It really is excellent value – just a seam unpicker alone at my Spotlight cost $7.95! I highly recommend anyone who has just started sewing and doesn’t yet have all the basics go along to their IKEA and pick one up 🙂 I also grabbed a packet of 4 different colours of sewing thread (red, green, blue and yellow) for $2. Ah, I love IKEA.

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tips, Tips and Tricks

Marking Stitches

I may not have been crocheting very long, but there is one thing I have learned very quickly – to be good at making amigurumi, you either need to be good at counting, or have a stitch marker on hand.

Until recently, I’ve been doing it the hardcore way – counting. Counting is all well and good until you get distracted by something shiny, lose count and have to rip the whole thing apart because you have no idea where you began your last round. And let me tell you, that gets old fast. So, I decided I would bite the bullet and get a stitch marker. At least, that was the plan until I saw how much those things cost! The only ones I could find were decorated with glamourous, Czech glass beads and the like, and were at least $10. Admittedly it wasn’t an exhaustive search, but I’d seen enough. My local Spotlight doesn’t have them, but I’m not discounting the possibility that other, better-stocked and better-organised Spotlights might. I have found several tutorials to make my own which I may end up doing one day, but until then, I’ve been experimenting with makeshift stitch markers around my home.

1. A small safety pin. Worked extremely well, except I lost it because it was, well, small.

2. A bobby pin. This is probably my favourite, as I have a metric shitload of them so if I lose one, it’s not a worry. The only problem is, sometimes they can have a little bit of grime caught in them and it can mark your yarn, so it’s best to use ones you know haven’t been near hair or anything else.

3. An earring. You know, one of those fishhook shaped ones. It worked ok for the most part, but had an annoying tendency to fall out at inopportune moments.

I imagine a paperclip would work wonders, but I haven’t tried one yet as I don’t own any. I have heard people say good things about bits of contrasting yarn, and one book I have recommends contrasting felt, but I feel that would be too fiddly for me to bother with.

Anyway, those are my handy dandy tips for using household objects as stitch markers, and if anyone knows of a good, cheap source for stitch markers, hit me up!

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