Hemming Jeans the Cool Way

A friend recently asked me to hem some jeans for her daughter, and she showed me one of her own pairs of jeans that she'd paid $20 to have hemmed by a tailor. They had preserved the original "distressed" bottom of the pant leg. You had to look REALLY close to see they'd even been hemmed.

After careful study of the example pair, I figured out how they did it. It's so slick! Here's my first try, on a pair of maternity jeans that I should only have to wear a few more months. I know it's not perfect -- the black thread was the WRONG choice. But I didn't feel like picking it out and it's really not super noticeable unless you are up close and personal. Use the right color thread and you can't tell AT ALL. :)

Here's the finished product -- you can see the outside and inside. Pretend that black thread was a jeans-color dark blue and that you couldn't really see it.
So you figure out how much you need to cut off to get the right finished length. I'll leave that up to you to figure out. These jeans were a petite size (and I STILL had to shorten them. sheesh.) so I didn't need to take off much.

Here's the process:

1) Cut off however much.
2) Zig-zag or serge both unfinished edges.
3) Fold up a tiny bit (up to 1/4 inch) of the pant leg. Iron it really good, and be careful not to stretch the fabric.
4) Match up the side seams. Tuck the part you cut off under the folded part of the pant leg and get the edge of the fold almost right on top of the existing stitching (the orange-ish thread here). Start sewing, and stay super close to the fold.
5) Go all the way around both legs, reattaching the original end of the pant leg, with the cool distressed edge.
6) Pat yourself on the back for not having to pay a tailor $20 to do it for you. Enjoy your newly hemmed jeans!