This morning I woke up and decided to turn the useless pair of flares in my closet into peg legs. I bought these fabulous white flares by True Religion a year or so ago and loved them- until I washed them. After the first wash they shrunk up about 2 inches in the hem taking them from fabulous and flattering to ridiculous.
I was irritated and had spent too much to bring them to Goodwill or consign them. The good news: they are the perfect length for a now-trendy peg leg. It was super simple and took me about 15 minutes from start to finish. I encourage you to do this with any of your shrunken hem jeans or outdated bootcuts (I know, it’s tragic).
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| Turn them inside out and align each leg so the inside hem is straight. |
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| You’ll need a sewing machine or needle and thread, tape measure, fabric chalk and scissors. |
You can sew these by hand but it will take longer and if you sew by hand you still need to do a second super-secure stitch (I used a zig-zag with my machine). Make sure you’re using super sharp scissors whenever you cut fabric or it could snag or not cut in a straight line.
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| Using a pair of pants whose hem you want to mimc, lay them on top of your jeans, carefully aligning the inside hems beginning at the top of the crotch. |
Make sure you align the over laying pants along the inside hem (inside of your legs) of your jeans to be altered. Start at the crotch and align them down from there. They should be fairly similar at the hip and thigh and follow each other to some point at the knee where you will begin tracing the top pair.
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| Using fabric chalk, trace the line of the overlaying pants onto the jeans you are altering. |
Your chalk line should begin around the knee of your jeans. If it’s a trouser leg jean you’ll probably need to completely alter the outside hem including pockets, etc. That will probably take more than fifteen minutes.
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| Repeat on the other leg. You can see here how much I’ll be taking these in. |
When you do the other side, again, make sure to align the jeans on the inside hem beginning at the crotch. Smooth them out so they are laying completely flat.
Realign the seams on the outside seam (outside of your legs). This is the seam you will be altering so make sure it’s flat. It doesn’t change your measurement to align them along the opposite seam. You want to measure out another quarter of an inch from your original line. Measure across the entire leg, not just from your line to insure that your measurements maintain accuracy.
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| Using a tape measure, measure out another quarter inch from your original line and mark it. |
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| Pin it in several places. |
Start sewing an inch or so above where your altered line will begin so that it transitions from the manufacture’s seam into yours smoothly. The first stitch is a straight stitch. Keep in mind that each seam needs to be tied off or run over at the top and bottom. My sewing machine has a back track button which ties the seam off.
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| Using your solid, original line as a guide, sew using a straight stitch along the second marks. |
Using your straight stitch as a guide, sew a second seam with a zig-zag stitch. Follow the manufacture’s seam the same way you did for the first stitch.
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| Using a zig-xag stitch sew a second seam on the outside of your straight stitch. |
When you finish sewing, turn your jeans right side in and check the lines to make sure everything is in line, including the hems. Put them on to make sure you’re please with the width of the leg opening, etc. When you are positive that it looks good you can trim the excess fabric about an eighth of an inch from your zig-zag seam.
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| Peg leg jeans in 15 minutes!! |
The Goods:
Jeans- True Religion
Pants whose hem I mimicked- LOFT “modern straight” (I love these pants!!)
Sewing Machine- Singer
