Dehemify
I'm a tall gal, between 5'9" & 5'10", depending on how old I am on any given day. When I try on jeans, about half of the time the length is too short for my taste. I like the back hem to be as close to the ground as possible without touching.
Dehemify is not a word, but I like to make things up. It means to take the mystery out of taking the hem out of your jeans. Boom. Word born.
I let the hem out on many of my jeans. Here's my latest, a pair of Lucky jeans I found at ARC for around $10:
Boring, boring hem.
Using a seam ripper, I take out the hem on each leg and iron flat, with Hobbes the cat watching:
The end result of this is not going to be a tidy, neat hem. It's going to be frayed with strings hanging down after the first wash.
To make sure the fringe & fray doesn't get too out of hand, I add some decorative stitches to the bottom with white thread. White doesn't stand out too much and neither does blue, but if you want it to stand out more, a metal thread or more colorful thread might be in order.
Here's me stitching. This is the most riveting 8 seconds of video ever:
And here's how it looks finished:
The decorative stitch in the middle serves to strengthen the fabric that was folded in the original hem. If this weakened fabric is too thin, add a strip of this muslin to the underside of the jeans to give the stitching something to hang on to and make sure the newly exposed fabric doesn't simply fall off.
The zig zag at the bottom serves to prevent excessive fraying.
And, here's how they look with some sandals, red toes, sunlight and a photo filter in my foot selfie:
Stitch on!