How to Blind Hem

If I can find a way to use my sewing machine to replace hand sewing, I'm all about it. And doing a blind hem on a pair of slacks is definitely something that is no fun to hand sew. So, I'm gonna teach you how to do it today on a machine. So, if you look here, this cuff on this pair of slacks has already been stitched with a blind hem and I've done it in white thread, so that you can see the end result. So, every once in a while, the machine will hit the fold of the fabric and hit to the front side.

Now, if you look at pairs of slacks that you already have, you'll notice that these are there. They're just the same color thread as the pants, so that you don't notice it. So, when you're going to hem your pants, this fold line that you have right here, you've noticed I've pressed it. That's where I want the finished edge to be, when I'm in the shoes that I'm gonna wear with these pants. So, when you cut it off, you're gonna measure that area on the back of your pant leg.

And then you're going to add about an inch and a half here, leave an extra inch and a half and then finish the edge with a serge like this, before you do your blind hem. So, folding the pants to do the blind hem is a little bit difficult. So, I'm gonna show you how to do that. The first thing we want to do is turn this pant leg inside out. So, I'm just gonna reach in the pants here and I'm gonna pull this guy through, so that I'm looking at the wrong side of the leg, okay?

Now, I want to fold it up. I've pressed to this really nicely. So, it folds up very easily to make my job easier. So, I have my hem just like that. And now what I want to do, here's the weird part.

You're going to fold the hem, back under the pant leg like this, so that it is now on the right side of the pants. And I would like to leave, see how I'm leaving the serge exposed. So, I have a fold, but it's not quite coming to the edge there. So, I'm gonna pin this into place and you'll see what I mean, as I do this all the way around the pant leg. You're just going to tuck the hem back under, tuck the cuff rather and see how I'm leaving a little bit of space there.

So, my serged edge shows. Now, if you don't have a serger at home, that's fine too. You just don't want to leave your edge very raw. When you've got a fabric like this, it'll fray pretty easily, especially around the ankle because the fabrics moving and kind of rubbing against your leg the whole time. So, you can use a zigzag stitch as well, just to finish that edge.

Okay, so I've pinned all the way around. Now, let's talk about the blind hem foot that I am using. 'Cause jobs are way easier when you have the right tools. So, this is my blind hem foot. There is a little plastic wall here.

And if I twist this, you'll see it's moving to one side and then I can go like this and it will move to the other side as well. So, this is how you adjust your hem as you're sewing. And we'll talk about that, when we get there. You're going to take this. And when you put your pants under the machine, you're going to but this fold right up against the wall, the needle as it sows is going to make a motion that looks like this, one, two, three, over the wall, back over the wall.

One, two, three, over the wall, back over the wall. So, what ends up happening and let me show you this finished one here. If we fold this under, here you see our stitch one, two, three over the wall. And if I pull this out, you'll notice that that little stitch is just barely catching the fold, okay? So that way, when we open it up on the other side, there's only a teeny little bit of threads showing.

So the wall, when you start to sew is where you're gonna adjust. So, if your stitches coming down here and it goes over the wall and stitches way up here, that is gonna be a long seam showing on the other side. So, then you're gonna move the wall, readjust and then get it. So, it just barely catches that, okay? So, let's do it.

We're going to put our blind hem foot on. Now, each machine has a different stitch that belongs to a blind hem. So, check your manual and find out which one is for your machine. So, I'm gonna remove this. And that's also the nice part about having a machine with what's called a free arm like this.

So, that way you can just take the cuff off of your pants and stick it right underneath, just like that. So, now I'm just gonna watch the wall. And if you're nervous about this, go ahead and use your flywheel. When you turn your flywheel to get a precise stitch, you always want to turn the top towards you. So, I'm gonna turn the top towards me and I'm just gonna walk it forward a little ways.

And then when it jumps over the wall, that looks pretty good. I'm just barely catching that fabric. Now, please feel free to adjust this, move your fabric and then test again before you get going. I also recommend keeping a seam ripper handy, because the first time you learn how to do a blind hem, you're gonna miss half of the cuff, but it's definitely a learning experience and it's easy to rip stuff out. So, don't worry about it.

Now, I want to make sure and remove my pins. I don't want to sew over my pins, some people like to do that, but it'll get stuck underneath the foot and then you'll lose the blinds hem. And when you get to a side seam like this, just go nice and low over the top of it. You'll get through it just fine. All right, once we get all the way around, we're gonna do a little back stitch and then we're gonna pull it out and you can see how my hem has gone.

And it's just barely caught on the other side, so that when we pull the leg back through, we straighten everything all out. We have a nice blind hem stitch that is barely visible on the other side.