Shortening Jeans

I used the clever, easy method described in a couple of tutorials I found -- it has you take in fabric just above the hemline so that you can maintain the original hem on your jeans, which is sometimes in contrasting thread and is always a kind of thick, awkward place to sew.  Even if you don't care about keeping the original hem, I think this method works very nicely, especially when you are taking the jeans up only a small amount and would otherwise have to try to unpick the original hem to fold the fabric up at the bottom (because the original hem is just too thick to turn up, if that makes sense).  I used a zipper foot and did stitch down the "flap" using thread that looks basically invisible on the jeans.

Let's start with a close-up of the hem area.

If you look closely, I think you can see that just above (well, because of my orientation here, below) the original orange hem, there is a line of blue stitching -- that's where I have sewn down the "flap" created when I took in some of the fabric to shorten the jeans.  It's kind of tough to see even when you're looking at it up close, and it's really not at all noticeable when you're looking at the jeans from any kind of normal distance/orientation.

Here are some outfits featuring newly shortened jeans.

11/5 - Black and Shiny

Yep, black is definitely showing up weird in my photos.  OK.

New items:
**Black jeans from Target (I have owned these for over a year and I don't think I ever wore them because they were a bit too long; I shortened them by about 1.25" and now they are perfect with flats)
**Black sequined tunic (thifted, Macy's brand)

11/8 - Floral Fun

I created this outfit around the idea that I wanted to wear the newly shortened jeans and this 3/4 length sleeve cardigan -- I had a bunch of cooking to do, and a 3/4 length sleeve is a great alternative to a long sleeve when you want to keep your clothes out of the food and (always a problem for me) out of the water when you're washing your hands.  The 3/4 length sleeve is like wearing a permanently scrunched long sleeve, and I don't know about you, but my long sleeves like to un-scrunch just as I get my hands under the faucet and get themselves soaked.  (Yes, I am aware you can also fold your long sleeves to the desired point, and I do that, too, but when a 3/4 sleeve is available, it's the better option in many cases, for me anyway.)

New item:
**Blue jeans (thifted, JC Penney brand -- I'd had these for quite a while, too, though not as long as the black ones)

11/10 - Pink Stripes

This is what I wore to get my hair cut (when we went out, I wore a new black moto jacket I bought at JC Penney over Labor Day, which of course I forgot to photograph -- I'll have to get that and the oft-mentioned, never-seen black wool coat).  At the hair place, one of the women was immediately like, "Oh, I love your shoes!" and pointed them out to a couple of the other employees of the place.  (Don't think pink is a fall color?  Bah!)  I built this outfit around the shoes and the necklace, and was just lucky to have a shirt that worked with both colors.

But you seriously need to see a close-up of the necklace to understand this whole thing.

It doesn't just have animal print beads, it has actual animals -- 3 excellent lions.  Is that fun or what?  I doubled up the animal print by wearing my leopard print belt with it.

New item:
**Lion necklace (thifted -- purchased the previous day at the Goodwill "boutique" with my interview coats)

11/11 - Colorblock Goodness

OK, I confess, I actually wore this sweater for the first time about two weeks ago, but that was with a pair of jeans that I've been wearing even though they're a smidge too short and that I can now (put in a stack with the intention to) shorten into knee-length shorts for the (brief) summer because I have finally hemmed other jeans to an appropriate length!

New item:
**Blue colorblock cardigan from Target (part of their recent $15 sweater sale)