Saturday, October 25, 2008

Short?

Let's face it I have a short family. Hubby is short, I'm vertically challenged, and so are both my younger kids. Dallas is taller than me and is about average... but she is grown up and out of the house so I don't have to worry about her pants. Well I can't really say that because this summer I was sitting here hemming up a pair of her capri (I think that's what you call them) pants because rather than just below the knee they looked more like wonky ankle pants when she wore them.

The other day, while I was in Kamloops, I stopped at Value Village and bought Jevan 6 pairs of pants. I'm really tired of buying brand new pants from Wal-Mart. Why, you asked? He is rather large, and short, for his age and I pay a high price for his pants, then end up cutting off as much as 10 inches from each leg. That's 20 inches of material that I pay for and is basically wasted! I can pick up most pants for him at VV for around 5 dollars a pair. Although they are cheap that still doesn't help me with the excess material. I was speaking with my Mom about it and we came up with the brilliant idea to put elastic in the bottom of the legs around the hem!

Did you know that some pants you don't even have to cut? They are like a tube and you simply slip the elastic in using a safety pin, pull tight, then stitch at each end. Those type of pants usually have a small slit up the leg and some have zippers. But most normal pants I just cut one small slit on the inside hem, run the elastic through, pull tight, and stitch across the elastic. Then let it pop back in and sew up the slit. Done. The nice thing is if Jevan happens to shoot up a bit he can still wear the pants because they grow with him, no more "flood" pants.

Elastic... it's faster than hemming, better than rolling them up, and much better than dragging 10 inches of material behind him ;) Another bonus is that some of the pants are the lined snow/water proof kind and having elastic around them pretty much eliminates snow getting up and under to his boots.

Inside:


Outside:


Zippered hem:

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You should patent that one. AB

Jackie said...

I have the opposite problem. Taller skinny kids. And pants have generally been getting wider in the waist. But thankfully, pant manufactures have solved the problem for me by putting the elastic and buttons in the waist.
Elastic is a wonderful invention, for both top and bottom!

Anonymous said...

What a great idea. I wouldn't have been able to do that with my son, but then he was slimmer than he was tall and it was the waste that was the problem. He wore a belt. I wrote about his clothes preferences in my post about Allowances on Friday. My husband isn't very tall. I am thinking he would take a dim view of me doing that with his dress pants;-). Still, I think it is an awesome idea and one I hope to use one day, perhaps with grandkids.

Anonymous said...

Kansas,

I usually do that to my sleeves in my long sleeve shirts. I can finally order my pants from the states with the right length. So I can really relate to this one.....Pat

Oma said...

Great idea for Jevan.