Have you ever had one of those "duh" moments? Recently, I read an article in Threads March 2010 issue called "Vionnet: Master Geometrician." It spent some time talking about her edge finishes. At one point it was talking about how she cut bias and sewed that to the edge and then in another article I read it spoke of using bias again on heavy material to keep the bulk in the seam down. A few days later our youngest son was gifted with more jeans. I had hemmed a slew of pants for him recently because he has had a growth spurt. When I did the jeans I broke 3 needles in the progress of completing the hemming job, so I was dreading hemming more jeans. As I was contemplating this task one day I had a "duh" moment. I remembered dh having some jeans his Momma hemmed when we were first married. She had used bias tape to do the hem and I had never seen anyone do that. Then again when I married him I had never seen many jeans hemmed by anyone other than the store or dry cleaner, but that's another story. It dawned on me that I could hem these jeans using bias tap to cut down on the bulk. I have lots of bias tape that I was gifted with a few years back. A couple pair of the jeans I cut off for shorts and a couple I left long. I pressed up at least a 1 inch hem on all of them. Next, I sewed bias tape to the right side of the hem allowance and then turned up the hem and folded the bias binding over the raw edge and sewed it down. No broken needles, no hump jumping problems at the seam! Sewing was a breeze and it took hardly any extra time to do the extra steps involved. I am one happy camper. So, tell me am I the only person in the universe who just got this or has everyone always hemmed jeans like this?

Sew Long for Now!