Sewing

3-needle chain stitched tapering of Carhartt work pants before and after photos

Tapering Carhartt & other work pants

Published on October 24, 2019

You love work pants but wish they came with a modern fit for casual wear. Here we explain the step-by-step process that went into tapering a pair of triple-needle flat-felled chain-stitched inseam Carhartt carpenter pants from a 20-inch wide leg, down to a 15-inch opening.

It’s a job that not many tailors or alterations services do because of the skill and equipment needed. As a denim factory with all the heavy-duty machinery required to deal with triple-needle stitching at both the out-seam and inseam of work pants, one can argue our added enhancements look better than the original manufacturing.

The tapering process

Step – 1: Inseam length

In the above before & after photo, you can note the lines drawn above the hem of the pants. It marks the requested inseam length. 1-inch is added to account for the two 1/2-inch folds of the hem.

The hem of pants are cut 1-inch longer than the request inseam length

From the start, we cut the inseam to match the customer’s requested inseam length. However, the inseam always grows during the sewing process when we put the inseam back together. The fabric stretches while being pulled through the flat-felled sewing machine. Pressing at the end of sewing also causes the fabric fibers to flatten and grow. We leave the length as-is, which is usually longer, anticipating the pants to relax back into place after wash and wear.

Step – 2: Undo the inseam

The requested inseam for this pant was 28-inches. After cutting the pants down to the new length, plus 1-inch, we pull the chain stitching apart at the inseam. This is a fairly quick process. For factories, the chain stitch is the strongest, and most effortless to pull apart in cases when re-sewing is needed.

The 3-needle inseam stitching of carpenter pants is taken apart

Step – 3: Re-Draft leg shape

The pants are opened and placed on the table to re-draft the leg shape. The leg of this Carhartt carpenter initially measured 20-inches in total circumference. The customer requested to bring it down to 15-inches.

Carhartt work pants are opened to re-draft the leg shape for tapering.

Below, note the leg opening measurement is 16 1/8 inches. 1 1/8-inches is added for seam allowance. In the photo above, markings for the knee can be seen. It highlights the area where we make the turn towards the crotch.

Close-up of leg opening measuring shows how to taper the leg of the pants.

Step – 4: Sewing

Finally, using the three-needle flat-felled sewing machine, the inseam is closed, and the hem is chain-stitched with a Union Special sewing machine. Last, the garment is pressed and packed for shipping back to the customer.

Under our alterations services menu, we offer triple-needle tapering, Double-needle, and single-needle tapering services. We charge slightly more for triple-needle work because of the machine set-up and change-over.

Bad DIY lockstitch hemming done by home sewing machine — Example of poor quality DIY lockstitch hemming done by home sewing machine.

101/Denim

Fixing Tailor’s & DIY Hemming Mistakes

Published on September 13, 2019

We fix a lot of professional tailor shops and DIY home sewing machine hemming jobs. People learn the hard way that home sewing machines aren’t up to standard when working with denim and then send jeans to us for re-hemming. The thick seamlines are just too much for most domestic machines, so we often find thin broken needles stuck inside of hems.

Others discover that the difference between the quality of denim alterations from a suit tailor or local cleaners, and us is like night and day. That’s because the heavyweight fabric requires specialized machines and the workmanship required for denim is worlds apart from suits, fine trousers, dresses, and style of garments commonly worked on at most tailoring shops.

Lockstitch sewing on selvedge denim jeans hem — Lockstitch hemming is often what you get at Cleaners or Professional Tailoring shops.

Hems are commonly sewn with chain stitching at jeans factories. Most professional tailors will try to hem jeans on single-needle lockstitch machines, but they often can’t handle the thick fabric or seams. Again, home sewing machines aren’t nearly capable.

Chainstitch vs lockstitch hemming — Example of chainstitch vs lockstitch hemming compared. Chain stitching at the top of the photo, lockstitching at the bottom.

When it comes to stitching sizes, professional tailors will use threads that are a little heavier than the small thread sizes which must be used in domestic machines. But still, they usually don’t stock the thicker thread sizes commonly used with denim. The difference is plain to see when it comes to jeans- have them professionally altered by a denim specialist.