Hem Your T-Shirts the Easy Way | Beginner Sewing Tutorial

We are going to be hemming t-shirts today. I love a big baggy graphic t-shirt and sometimes the ones you buy from gift shops, for example, I got all of these at a gift shop in Maine. The more basic like Gildan brand or similar brands, they just don't fit how you want them to fit, right? For me at least, I always need to hem them a little bit to get them looking how I want them to look. So I have tried several methods over the years and I've landed on the one that I love the best and I'm gonna show you how I hem all of my t-shirts. I have put on the first shirts that we're gonna hem. I forgot to mention, we are leaving the original hem on these shirts. With most t-shirts like this, when you look at the hem, you can see the kind of stitch that they do has from the front side, these like two parallel lines of stitching and then from the backside, it's like finished edge here that looks really nice. I obviously like how the hem looks finished. It lays flat, stays flat, but my machine doesn't do this type of stitch. I imagine it's like an industrial machine that does that kind of hem. Mine doesn't. So the way we're going to hem this is going to keep the original hem. It's a little bit of magic. So try on your shirt first to decide where you want it, where you wanna hem it. So from the front, I actually really do like this length. My other shirt that I was just wearing is a very similar length, but it is much wider. That one is from Damson Matter and they have the fit down. They've done a great job. This one is from a gift shop and the fit is not that great. So even though I like the length, the width is not working. From the front, it looks fine, but like when I turn to the side, you can see it's just quite tight through here. It's like exactly the width of my hips. As I'm like moving throughout the day, as one does, it just rides up and kind of creates this like bunching up back here and that's not what I love. I think it's important to note, this is all personal preference. I am giving no recommendations on where you should hem your shirt. This is just where I like to hem it. And you could do the same thing, the same method that we're going to do and like crop it really short, or just take it up like an inch or two like we're going to do. When I put the shirt on initially, before I like yank it down, and I just kind of like let it fall, it lands like right at the top of my hips more, you know, and then it bunches up in back and has like all this extra fabric right here, creating like these folds that I hate. So kind of what I would love, is I would love for the shirt to fall like where it naturally does at more of the top of my hips, but without all of this excess fabric. So that's what we're going to do. So I'm going to put the shirt flat again and kind of decide where I want that hemline to be. I think it's going to be about here. This is hard to do in the camera. I might redo the fold after I show you how to do it. So basically decide where you want your hem to be, take the original hem and fold it just above that point. And then I'm going to take a pin and I'm going to pin it in place, like so. Here's a little bit of a better visual with that pinned up. So where I want the hem to be is going to be about at this mark. And I've folded it all up so that the original hem is just a little bit above there. We're just going to do the one pin for now. Now all we're going to do is fold the rest of the hem up the same distance length. So let's see, it is a little under three inches, two inches and seven eighths. So I'm going to straighten this out a little bit and then I'm just going to go every so often around the whole shirt. Make sure that the fold is the same distance and continue that around the whole hem. Okay, I've gone around and made adjustments, remeasured. I've put in eight pins in total. That felt like a good amount to keep it all secure. Now we're going to do a straight stitch right below this original hemline here. So I'm going to do mine about an eighth of an inch below that hemline. That is my preference. You may want to do it on top, like if you want the stitches to line up exactly. I just feel like that creates extra bulk. So I do mine like directly below it, about an eighth of an inch running parallel to this stitch here. Let's go do that. I have the bottom of my t-shirt here. So I'm going to line the needle up, like I said, just below that original stitch line. And then I'm also going to adjust my stitch length to let's say a four. That's just going to help the needle go smoothly without stretching out this knit fabric. Alternatively, you could use a walking foot, but I just want to get this done quickly. So I'm not going to worry about switching out my foot. When I met back up with my previous stitch, I just did a little bit of a back stitch and that part is all done. Now what we need to do is trim away all of this extra fabric here that's like folded over. I am going to use my serger to trim away this excess fabric and finish the raw edge once it is trimmed away. If you do not have a serger, you can absolutely just trim away this excess fabric with scissors. I would do it about a quarter inch away from the line that you just stitched. So cutting a line about right there all the way around. And then I have a tutorial on finishing raw edges without a serger. So you could either do a zigzag stitch or an overlocking stitch with your regular sewing machine. That'll totally work. I'll link that tutorial if you're interested, but I'm going to do it with my serger. My knife here is going to cut away the excess fabric and then the thread is going to finish the raw hem. So it doesn't really matter where I start cutting in. I'm just going to pick a random point and the knife is going to cut into the fabric. And then once I get close enough to the stitch, I'll run along the stitch all the way around the hem. This is what the hem should look like now after you have cut away the excess fabric and finished that raw edge. Now I am going to take my iron and I'm going to press this raw edge that we just serged or finished up toward the shirt and away from the hem so that it lays flat. I think pressing it up makes more sense. Pushing it down just creates a ton of bulk right here. So it sits nicely when it's pushed up and forward. So I'm just going to take my iron and press that flat. This stage, this is what your hem will look like. There's the inside and the outside. And you can see this creates kind of a extra wide hem here or a double hem kind of, and you can leave it like this if you want to. It really would be totally fine if you did. I, however, like to top stitch this seam allowance down that we've folded so that there's no flipping around while you're wearing it. It will just lay nice and flat. So I'm going to go in right along the edge of this seam allowance here, the one that we've folded up, and I'm going to top stitch a line all the way around the hem, maybe about quarter inch away from that seam. So that's it. We're done. I'm going to try it on in just one second. But I did want to mention as I was stitching this, I realized this probably wouldn't work for a t-shirt that's like super duper stretchy form fitting and tight just because we're doing a lot of straight stitches, which don't really stretch super duper well. So you could probably do something similar on like an ultra stretchy shirt or tank top or whatever. You would just have to be doing zigzag stitches or using like elastic thread or something. I've never done that because I wear baggy shirts and not form fitting tight shirts. But I've done it on like baby tees, right? And that also works well. As long as there's a bit of ease around your body and it's not insanely stretchy, it should be fine. Let's go put it on and see the difference. All right, it is all done. And I think that it is super cute. It is exactly the length that I would want. Honestly, I feel like maybe I could have left like half of an inch on there. Because like I said, I do like the length of it being long, but width wise, it wasn't working out. So this is perfect in that it sits at the very top of my hips and it doesn't come down to the widest point of my hips down here or past that point even, which it did before. This fits me much better. So now I will be able to wear it and be comfortable, which is the main thing. I feel like that was my goal is to wear it and not feel like it was constantly getting caught on my hips. I've had this shirt for a few weeks now and I've only worn it once because the one time that I wore it, I was constantly just annoyed with how it was fitting around my hips. And now I can put it on and like literally not even think about it. It's so much better. Hopefully this tutorial was helpful. I love doing little quick practical tutorials, tips, sewing, hacks, and upcycling things similar to this where you have a garment, an item of clothing that you like, but there's just something about it that you feel like you need to change to make it perfect for you. That's how I learned to sew was by doing little things like that to my clothes. So if you guys have any other tutorial ideas along those lines, let me know. This really feels like I'm getting back to my roots. Thank you for being here. Love you guys. And I'll see you next time.