Is fusible tape the answer for hemming pants?

I have about 20 suits and a good 6 of them have at least one of the pants leg hems in some state of unsew-dom. For those of you who have this, it sometimes gets worse when you put the pants on because you can catch your foot in the gap and rip even more threads out. I will either have to leave a bunch of my suits out of commission while they're being repaired or try to learn to do it myself (which is probably going to ruin my eyesight and make me crazy because I don't know what I'm doing). I've had people suggest fusible tape (example:

My questions for those of you who have used it:

1) Does it make the hems look visibly rippled, or thick, or anything undesireable? 2) If it doesn't hold, is there any sort of irreversible damage (like adhesive that won't come off and will then make hemming them with thread problematic)?

They are all suit pants and will only be dry cleaned occasionally, and never make it into the washer.

Thanks in advance -

B

I would suggest that you ask a lady in the family , or neighbor, or lady friend if she would take a few minutes to teach/show you how to hem the suit pants by hand. One of the guys you work with might be able to help. I won't take very long to learn to hen the leg of the pants that need repair. You might need to go to the drug store and get a pair of magnifying glasses to help you see to thread a needle. To get the correct needle and thread colors needed, the salesclerk can help you. Hope this helps! Barbara in Florida

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I've never met a man with roughly normal eyesight and IQ who couldn't learn to restitch a hem in less than 10 minutes.

It can. Heat and Bond is quite heavy and makes the fabric look stiff, imho. If I had to use it, I'd use Vilene's "extra fine fusing tape", which is much more supple. I've even done emergency hems on bridal party clothes with it... it is pretty good, but I wouldn't use it routinely. Hand hems or machine blind hems are much more supple and hang correctly.

There can be. And residual stiffness.

So you can learn to do it yourself, or you can pay an alterationist (or a dry cleaner) to do it for you, if you want them to look better than iron on adhesives.

Machine blind hemming:

Hand hemming: If you buy a packet of "embroidery/crewel" needles, they have bigger eyes than regular sewing needles, so are much easier to thread. Here's the easy way to thread them: Though I'm showing it with embroidery floss here, you can use standard sewing thread just as easily. You can do it! Stop back if you've got more questions. Since you've got the hems partially in, and the folds are all pressed, all you've got to do is learn at least one of the stitches she shows in the video. Oh, and you'll save about $60 over what it would cost you to have them done, judging on local prices here.

Kay

Hey thanks Kay (and Bobbie). I guess I should just take the effort to learn this - I tried once and was unable to routinely get the thread under one thread so it didn't come out the other side. I'm good with the threading the needle, but I think that's where my accuracy stops. I was probably in a hurry and not getting it right - I look forward to watching the video and learning something!

B

P.S.: I realize on 2nd view that I misspelled "undesirable" - shoot!

P.P.S.: Who invented the skip?

The adhesive is designed *not* to come off. And the hold is often not too secure. Dry cleaning may well be harder on the adhesive than washing.

Hemming isn't too difficult.

Ordinarily I inveigh against the practice of teaching beginners to knot the ends of the thread together to keep the thread from coming out of the needle --sewing with a doubled thread causes all kinds of difficulties-- but you have no intention of learning how to sew, and the art of handling the thread so that it doesn't come out of the needle is the hardest part to master. (Partly because I don't know how I do it; I just do it.)

So pick a fine thread so that it won't overwhelm when doubled. If the pants are wool, choose silk thread. Reeled silk is stronger and finer than spun silk, but strength doesn't matter much in hems, and spun silk is easier to find, easier to handle, and less shiny.

For any other fabric, choose a good polyester.

In practice, you'll buy what the store has. Take a pair of pants to a fabric store and tell the clerk that you want thread that color. In my fabric store, the job is done, but I hear that some fabric stores hire clerks who are ignorant and snippy; if so, go to the display of threads and pick one about the same color as your pants. When in doubt, choose the darker shade. One spool will last you forever.

Also buy a packet of needles. "Sharps" are the proper needle for general sewing, but I like embroidery (a.k.a. crewel, long-eye, or stretched-eye) needles because their larger eyes are easier to thread. For a beginner, pick a fairly-coarse needle, say #8 or #7. You are likely to find a packet of a few each of sizes three through nine. For your purposes, an assortment is better than a dozen of the same size, since you can change your mind after you've used a needle for a while and found it too coarse or too fine.

You really ought to have a thimble, so that you can push the needle without poking your finger, but I'm not there to make you use it, so save your money. If you do get one, a "thumble" is good, because pushing with the thumb seems instinctive. (I wear my thimble on my middle finger, and also control the needle with it. This took a lot of practice.) A thimble absolutely, positootly MUST FIT.

After sixty years of trying various methods, I've settled on a simple running stitch for all my hems.

First, cut off a piece of thread about as long as your arm. Use sharp scissors so that the end won't be fuzzy. If failed attempts to thread the needle mess up both ends of the thread, snip one of them off before trying again. Pulling the end of the thread across a candle stub or other piece of wax will stiffen it and glue the fibers together -- beeswax is traditional for this purpose. Or you can lick a fingertip and draw the end of the thread out of your pinch to comb ruffled fibers.

Poke the end of the thread through the hole in the needle.

Match the ends of the thread and wrap the doubled thread around the end of your finger. Roll this loop off the end of your finger, then close it by pulling on the needle while pinching the loop between the fingers of the other hand. This puts a knot at the very end of the thread. Your first attempt will be incredibly messy; don't worry about it; it's on the inside where nobody will ever see it.

Start near the end of one of the sections that is still hemmed. Hold it so that the needle in your favored hand points toward the un-hemmed place. Push the needle down into the hem and bring it up about a quarter inch away, passing through the hem only. Pull gently until the knot rests snugly against the fabric. {If necessary, pinch the stitch just made to make sure the thread is straight and the fabric is flat. Repeat this step whenever required.}

Now put the needle into the cloth about a sixteenth of an inch behind the place where it came up and take another stitch through the hem only. (Don't fret if you catch a little of the outer fabric.) This puts a small loop in the thread to keep the thread from pulling out when the knot wears off. Just to be safe, make two more of these "backstitches".

At this point you should still be on the still-hemmed part of the hem, but close to the ripped part. Now put the needle in a sixteenth of an inch beyond the place where you came up and take a stitch through all layers. The thread that shows on the right side must catch at least two threads of the pants; otherwise it will break away and leave a hole. But as long as you catch two threads, the shorter the better.

Repeat until you have sewn an inch or so of the still-hemmed hem on the other side, take three or four back stitches through the hem only, run the needle between the layers about half an inch, cut the thread close to the fabric. Since the thread angles down and up through thick fabric, the picks will be about a quarter inch apart.

If there is so much ripped hem that it slithers around while you are trying to sew it, use pins. Put the pins in at right angles to the hem so that you don't stick yourself on them.

If you have no pins, your spare needles will do, but be *very* careful not to lose them. A pin bends when embedded in flesh, a needle snaps off and requires a visit to Urgent Care.

(The default is to put the pins into the stitching line with the heads toward you, but lets not go into that.)

If at all possible, work in a room with a hard floor so that you can find things when you drop them.

Refinements: you can take several running stitches before pulling all of the thread through. Since you can't shorten or lengthen the doubled thread, it will be too long until it starts being too short, so economizing on the pull-throughs will save time and sore muscles.

After a little practice, you can sort of wiggle the needle to make two or more stitches before pulling the needle out.

Just before securing the thread, check that the stitches are neither puckered nor loopy. If puckered, stretch the fabric and smooth the puckers toward the needle. If loopy, tighten the stitches by pulling on the needle. It's a good idea to stop every few inches, make the tension just right, then make a back stitch to keep it that way.

If the thread gets inconveniently short, fasten off as if the job were done, then re-thread the needle and start again a little behind where you left off.

Come back and ask again when something doesn't go right.