Simple adjustments to your clothing

Simple adjustments to your clothing can also breathe new life into pieces you once deemed outdated. Whether it's a hem being raised, a waist cinched, or a rejuvenated cuff, these minor changes can redefine, revamp, and reinvigorate.

Making trousers shorter is relatively straightforward. Especially with hem tape, a wonderful invention for the non-sewers among us, makes adjusting trouser lengths a cinch.

How to hem trousers:

First, ensure your trousers have been washed to avoid any post-hemming shrinkage surprises. It'd be a tad frustrating to shorten them only to find them shorter after a wash!

1. Fold up the fabric of your trousers to the desired length and pin it in place.
2. Try on your trousers once more to double-check that the length is correct.
3. Mark the new fold edge with tailor's chalk
4. Unpick the existing seam using a stitch unpicker
5. For the seam allowance, you should have at least 3.5 cm of fabric underneath your chalk line.
6. Trim excess if needed.
7. Turn your trousers wrong side out.
8. Fold the raw edge up once with a 1 cm seam allowance.
9. Fold once more with a 2.5 cm seam allowance. Your chalk line should now align with the new edge.
10. Pin your new hem in place.
11. Stitch along the edge of your new fold
12. Press with your iron for a crisp fold

How to hem trousers without sewing

Do you not own a sewing machine? With hem tape, you won't have to!

• Follow steps 1- 9 above.
• After step 9, you add hem tape under the final fold.
• Iron over the tape, sealing the fabric together.

Most jeans boast a distinctive, worn-in finish at the hem that's often hard to duplicate. So, what to do when your jeans are too long? Try this jeans hack!

You can trim to your desired length and then seamlessly reattach that original, character-rich hem. Here's how:

• Turn your jeans inside out.
• Measure the amount you wish to shorten.
• Create a fold, keeping the original hem facing out.
• Sew closely along the original hem, then trim any excess fabric inside the fold.

Make trousers slimmer at the waist with this straightforward solution. This technique offers a snugger fit without altering the trousers permanently:

• Make a small incision on the inner side of the waistband.
• Thread a suitable length of elastic through, gathering the waistband as you go.
• Secure both ends of the elastic by stitching.

With some decorative tape, you can breathe new life into tired sleeves.

• Clean the cuffs and make sure they're ironed smooth.
• Align the tape with the edge of your cuff or use bias tape to envelop the entire edge.
• Pin it in place, ensuring it's evenly wrapped around the cuff's circumference.
• Using a matching thread, sew the tape onto the cuff.