I can’t sew. I don’t own/use a sewing machine and I failed Year 7 textiles when we had to sew a stuffed toy snake. I don’t have the patience or precision or whatever it is that you need to be good or even just capable when it comes to sewing. Which sucks because I would love to be able to make my own clothes but I just don’t have it in me. However when I was a teenager I wanted to wear super tight jeans like The Ramones but they didn’t sell tight jeans like that in shops. This was when flared jeans where enjoying their rebirth and it was down right impossible to find anything tighter than bootcut. So I would buy the tightest jeans I could find and then I would peg them myself. I hadn’t done this in about five years due to not wearing jeans at all for a few years and then finding Dujour where I have been getting jeans tailored recently but I really liked these City Chic high-waisted jeans so when they had a sale online a few weeks ago I just bought a pair and hoped for the best. When they arrived they fit me in the waist/hips and were fine to about mid-thigh where they just kind of went straight down and since my thighs are a lot thicker than my calves/ankles they were just baggy all the way down. I mentioned this on tumblr and had quite a few responses from girls who have the same problem, so-called skinny leg jeans were not skinny at all so I thought I would share with you guys the easy way I fixed them.

You’re going to need some pins, some thread (preferably the same colour as your jeans or the same colour as thread already used on them) and a thick needle. The City Chic jeans I used are actually a pretty thin denim so I didn’t need a really thick needle but the thicker your denim is, the thicker the needle you’ll need to use.

First put your jeans on inside out. Then pin them from wherever they start to go baggy (in my case mid-thigh) down to your ankle following the curve of your leg. You want them to taper inwards as your leg gets thinner, not follow a straight line down.

When you start sewing you need to start at the actual seam and then gradually sew inwards before you start sewing down the leg otherwise there will be a weird bunchy bit at the top. You can tell that my sewing isn’t straight but if your jeans have a bit of stretch to them it doesn’t really matter because they’ll hug your leg. You might need to sew them and then try them on again and then sew tighter in some bits, I had to re-sew mine around my knees a couple of times which you can see here:

If you have to do this it doesn’t really matter because the other bits you’ve sewed won’t show when you’re wearing them. After sewing the legs I had to cuff mine because I’m short:

If you have to cuff yours it’s a bit tough sewing the ankle up since you’re sewing through two layers of denim so again, remember to use a big/thick needle. That’s pretty much it. If you have a sewing machine I’m sure you could probably knock this out in about ten minutes but if you’re sewing by hand like me it’ll take you an hour or two. I didn’t think I was going to make a post about pegging jeans so I didn’t think to take a ‘before’ photo of mine but this is what they look like now that they’re pegged:

The material you’ve sewed off just sits flat against your leg and no-one will ever know that they weren’t skinny jeans all along. I’ve never made a how-to tutorial kind of thing before so let me know if there’s something I haven’t explained clearly.