<p>My 13-year old is going to high school next month and has to wear Dockers-type pants. He’s in that growing-like-weeds phase so I’m buying some of his pants longer than he needs right now. Obviously I’m going to hem them, but since this is my first experience with an adolescent boy, I’m wondering if anyone has any suggestions as to the best way to handle this. Should I take the pants to the tailor and have a regular hem that can be let down (will that hem mark the pants permanently?) or should I use the iron on tape since I know the hem isn’t permanent?</p>
<p>I had to click on this thread because I had no idea what you meant by “hems,” zm! The only thing that came to mind was the short nonword that people use when they don’t know what to say.</p>
<p>Clearly I have nothing to offer you. My 13-yo son once got a couple of test questions wrong because he did not recognize pictures of a thimble or an ironing board. (We do have an ironing board.)</p>
<p>My husband is buying me an ironing board and iron in the next couple of weeks since I expect to be doing a lot of ironing for Mr. Cutie Pants. Our goal for the next couple of weeks is to practice tying a tie. The question is whether either of us will master the skill.</p>
<p>I just don’t know what to do with the pants. My Ds never grew this quickly and were pretty much done by the time they went to high school. The boy grew 7 inches this year and I don’t want to buy all new pants every couple of months. </p>
<p>Such first world problems I have!</p>
<p>I recently saw some gadget on an infomercial that held up hems so you could switch out flats or heels with the same pair of pants. Wonder if that would work?? Maybe called hem gems or snap hem and there is temporary hemming rape but I don’t know how sturdy that is.</p>
<p>My wife say, “Give me that,” and they would be fixed in a few hours. She has a sewing kit and a sewing machine though I don’t know which she uses.</p>
<p>Some of the ladies in the office have those multi-thousand dollar sewing machines and they make costumes and outfits for their kids. Apparently those sewing machines are really computers with a bunch of pre-programmed patterns available and will do a lot of the work for you.</p>
<p>I generally do my own ironing when I need to wear a dress shirt though I have several permanent press shirts. I usually iron shirts for our son when he needs to wear one (which is seldom). I’ll do his tie for him too but fortunately he doesn’t need to do this for work (he’s not here anyways).</p>
<p>I can tie a tie without thinking about it but can’t tie when when I think about it so I have to get behind him to do it. There are youtube videos for doing ties. There might be some for ironing dress shirts too.</p>
<p>I used to have to wear dress shirts every day and enjoyed ironing shirts because it was a task that didn’t require any thinking - I spent too much time doing thinking work and it was nice to not have to engage the brain for some things.</p>
<p>The biggest problem with letting down a hem to make pants longer is not how the hem was stitched. It’s that the fold that constitutes the bottom of the pants becomes a different color than the rest of the pants because it gets greater wear–lighter on dark pants and darker on light pants–and it will almost always show. That may or may not matter. However, speaking from bitter experience (the kid grew a foot between the end of freshman year and graduation) letting the hem down only made the pants the right length for about five minutes before he grew again.</p>
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I hadn’t thought of that. Oh boy. I guess I better have him stand on a table and get a sense of how long they actually are now.</p>
<p>“Apparently those sewing machines are really computers with a bunch of pre-programmed patterns available and will do a lot of the work for you.”</p>
<p>I assure you this is not true. If only it were. The new machines are pretty good at embroidery but categorically refuse to do hemming without assistance. And they whine about it the whole time.</p>
<p>A deep hem (or an extra fold of fabric in the hem) may work, but it all depends on how many times they are washed as to weather or not it will look ok when you let down the hem. The stitching line will probably show and the crease line will also probably show. Now, your son may not care, but it would bother the heck out of me. lol </p>
<p>One detail - the cost of having a tailor hem the pants and then rehem the pants may equal the cost of a new pair of pants. Hemming, especially if he has to take the time to make the hem deeper or add extra fabric in the hem, is labor intensive and therefore somewhat costly. New pants might not be such an unreasonable option. It may really only be cost effective if you can do the labor yourself. </p>
<p>I’ve not used iron on tape before, so I can’t speak to the practicality of that option.</p>
<p>This is good advice. Thank you!</p>
<p>I’d just whip stitch the hem in place, then it’s easy to let down. That being said MIL says she basically bought 3 or 4 pairs of pants for DH at time for a while in high school. He was growing so fast, it was easier to just buy new pants every few weeks. </p>
<p>Maybe several inexpensive pairs in several lengths?</p>
<p>My experience with fast growing boys says, just get the minimum amount of pants because by the time you need to let the hem down, the pants will be a wreck and they’ll need new ones anyway.</p>
<p>Beall’s of Florida carries boys dockers size 8-20 for $15, there is also 15% off, don’t know what the shipping charges are. Some Goodwill and Salvation Army stores carries new school uniform pants and tops this time of year.</p>
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<p>This is what I did for my S. Here is a “how to” link. <a href=“http://cyberseams.com/article/105045/basics/how_to_sew_by_hand_basic_stitches.html[/url]”>http://cyberseams.com/article/105045/basics/how_to_sew_by_hand_basic_stitches.html</a></p>
<p>Suggestion–make sure that when you pin the bottom to set the hem your S is wearing the pants at the point on his body (hopefully his actual waist) where he will wear them at school. If you hem them using the waist and the boy wears them “low” then he will be walking/dragging the hem and the pant will fray at the hem so that it cannot be let out.</p>
<p>Wow, let me just say that I feel for the poor kid. I don’t know any grown men who have to wear slacks and ties to their offices anymore. Seems like cruel & unusual punishment to me :-).</p>
<p>Its good to know how to tie a tie of course but many boys just loosen them and hang them on their bedroom doorknob 
Waist size might be changing too zooser so don’t buy too much ahead of time…I would only keep two pair and teach him how to use the washer /dryer :)</p>
<p>Have fun!</p>
<p>When my S was in middle school, he had to wear a tie for some of his musical appearances. H generally tied it for him. Then a day came when H was going to be out of town, and he gave me a crash course in tying before he left. </p>
<p>I made a hash of it. So S got on the internet (and we’re talking maybe 12/13 years ago), found a tie-tying website, and stood in front of the computer teaching himself. I still don’t know how to do it.</p>
<p>Agree with the posts that suggest buying the fewest pairs of pants, then replace them when/if he grows again. Your son can’t sustain that rate of growth so you may get more use out of the pants than you think.</p>
<p>The trick in the old days for covering up when a hem was taken up or lowered was to cover the worn/bleached out line with a row of rick rack. Do three rows if you want to hide the fact that you’re hiding something. Have seen this on hand me down skirts but doubt it was ever done on men’s pants.</p>
<p>The notion (sew to speak) that you’d pay a tailor to save money is giving me a tension headache.</p>
<p>My D was a ballet dancer, and in one ballet she was issued a costume and instructed to hem it to fit but was not allowed to remove any fabric.</p>
<p>It had the fullest skirt ever! Didn’t think I’d EVER be done hemming it. Plus, it was at least 8 inches too long.</p>
<p>Can the pants have a cuff in them? That might be an alternative to using rick rack hiding the former length of the pants.</p>
<p>My 18-year-old son who leaves for college in less than 2 weeks finally learned to tie a tie this spring. He’s had to wear one frequently throughout HS due to music, debate and forensics, but wouldn’t learn to tie one, despite my suggestions that it would be a useful skill to have. I have never learned, but I don’t wear ties. I did tie a bow-tie once by following some instructions.</p>
<p>It probably wont matter in the long run, because no matter how we hemmed the pants they ended up dragging on the ground anyway and getting ratty looking in the back. Better to invest in a belt, if its in the uniform, and see if they can keep the pants from dragging on the ground.</p>
<p>Sometimes I sewed hems, sometimes got lazy and pinned. That usually caused them to get something caught in it and they ripped. Tape never worked- either got ripped or washed out, then they were too long and… coming full circle, the bottoms got raggedy. Fortunately our school had a consignment store and we could buy gently used pants for a reasonable price. Some actually made it without gettign all ratty at the bottom and could be recycled.</p>
<p>Get to know boys in older grades and buy their used pants from their moms…</p>