High Water Jeans to Shorts Keeping the Original Hem

Hey wonderful readers! I hope you all had a great weekend and a Happy (Late) Mother's Day!!

My husband was so sweet. He made breakfast before church and we all ate it picnic style in our bedroom. Then he made dinner for us too. It was great! 

Alright, I'm just busting away at my sewing list so here's another project I got done last week. 

When I was pregnant with Andrew and first went shopping for maternity clothes I got these great jeans. Somewhere along the way though they became high waters. I don't know if I shrunk them or if they've always been this short and I just don't remember, but either way they're too short for comfort anymore. 

So I went about making them into shorts. I found this tutorial from The Pretty Poppy for hemming jeans with the original hem and decided to give it a try.

I laid the jeans on the floor (should be inside out) with a pair of shorts the length I like. 

With the jeans turned inside out I marked them the length I wanted them to be.

I measured from that mark to the bottom of the pants. 

Using that measurement I made marks all the way around the pant leg. 

I cut around the pant leg following the lines.

Then I cut the original hem off about 1/2" above the seam. 

Then using seam rippers, I removed all the stitching from the hem of the jeans. 

So if you were doing this to just hem jeans a little, you wouldn't have this problem, but since the bottom of the jeans is wider than where I cut them off at, I had to sew the cuff a little bit smaller to line up.

Mark where they line up and sew a line and cut off the extra.

With the cuff open, fold the top down about 1/2" 

Then insert the cuff into the leg of the shorts and fold the cuff over top of the jeans.

Sew around the legs with thread that matches the original thread. And you're done. I didn't notice the color difference until I was finished, but it doesn't matter. I'm happy that they aren't just cut off looking shorts so I'll take it! :)