There is a box, in the corner of my sewing room.
It is a box whose contents have not seen the light of day for many a month.
Many crafters will be familiar with this box, in all of its forms:
There’s the ever-growing amorphous lump that lies underneath your desk…
The monster underneath your bed… The stuff you vacuum-packed in a fit of organization
and stuffed into your garage in the hopes that you’d never have to deal with it again…
This, my friends, is the UNFINISHED SEWING PILE.
The item that I pulled out of the box for today’s episode is this thrifted dress.
Now it's a pretty nice simple floral dress with a gathered skirt… but it really annoys
me that more of my clothes don’t have POCKETS. I've decided that I need more pockets in my
life. So, I’m going to add some. Now, you can do this to any item of clothing
that has side seams – dresses, skirts, pants, jackets – basically anything that has a
seam that you can rip open.
To make a pattern for my pocket, I grabbed a piece of paper with a straight edge, and
then I put my hand flat on it, and then angled my hand slightly downwards like this.
Then, I traced around the shape of my hand, with roughly 1 inch extra all the way around,
turning it into a pocket shape that looks like this. And then I cut my pattern out.
The fabric that I’m using for my pocket is this thrifted cotton pillow case. The pillow
case fabric is already in two layers, but if you’re just using a regular piece of
fabric then fold it over before this next step.
I put my pocket pattern on top of the fabric, traced around it, repeated this, and then
cut them out. Now if you remember, I was cutting through 2 layers of fabric here, so this gave
me 4 pocket pieces in total and I will use 2 symmetrical pieces for each pocket.
Back to my dress, I tried it on and then I figured out roughly where I wanted the pockets
to sit. Then, I turned the dress inside out, lined up the pocket pattern with the seam,
and then I made 2 marks, using chalk, at the top and bottom of the pocket, on the dress material.
Then, I ripped open the seam in-between the chalk lines. I used some small, sharp scissors
and a seam ripper to help me out here, and I actually opened up the seam to one inch
above and below the chalk lines.
Then – and watch carefully because this is a little bit tricky – when I sew it on,
my pocket is going to end up facing in a downwards direction like this. So, I line up the straight
edge of the pocket with the open seam, right side of the fabric facing down, and then,
on the dress at the open seam, I fold back the top layer like this. Then I carefully
place the pocket material on top, right-sides-together with this folded-back dress fabric - and then
I insert pins to keep it in place. That was a little bit confusing, so this is
what it looks like from the other side, once it's all pinned together.
And then, I sew this piece of the pocket to the dress like this.
I just use a basic straight stitch and I sew the pieces together about 1 quarter of an
inch away from the edges.
On the other side of the open seam, I’m going to do the exact same thing to attach
the other half of the pocket. So, I line up the pocket, fold back the dress
material at the seam,
pin, and then sew the pocket to this side of the dress using a straight stitch.
And once both the pocket flaps are sewn on, I place them right-sides together. With the
dress still inside out, I sew the seam back together where it’s been opened above and
below the pocket material, and also all the way around the pocket like this.
It’s also a good idea to pin everything in place to hold it together while you sew!
Again, I’m using a basic straight stitch. When I was done I turned my dress the right
way around, and I admired this cute new little pocket!
I then gave the pocket a good iron and then I repeated the exact same thing on the other
side to end up with two pockets, and I’m done!
And this is how it looks! The addition of pockets to this dress makes
it about twice as interesting, and also infinitely more useful because this dress can hold things!
I also like how the pockets are hidden - they're really subtle and you can’t really see them
- but when you do, BAM, they’re super cute and polka-dotty!
So, now that I know how easy it is to add pockets to an item of clothing, I’m going
to go ahead and add pockets to every pocketless item that I own. Thanks for watching, and
I’ll see you all later! Bye!