It has pockets! (Well it does now!)

Let’s talk pockets. Any person who has bought women’s fashion will know that pockets are in short supply. Sometimes, even baby clothes have better pockets than women’s clothes. What is a baby carrying around anyway? Probably their Mom’s stuff! There is actually an interesting history on women’s pockets. I encourage you to give it a Google. 

In modern women’s clothing they prioritized form over function. If we do get a pocket, its tiny. Why  bother putting in a pocket that can barely fit a Chapstick tube? Having multiple fake pockets on pants is not uncommon. And, don’t even get me started on having pockets which are functional, but are stitched closed when you get them. 

I have 3 pairs of the same pants in different colours (if you know, you know) and the back pockets are fake. I’m constantly trying to put my phone in them. I’ve had enough of that, so today I’m adding in pockets!

There are so many styles of fake pockets, there isn’t necessarily one way to do this. I’m going to show you what I did and hopefully this will give you the confidence to tackle your own pockets. 

These pockets are like a welt style pocket which I didn’t want to take apart to rebuild. I took the easy way out and cut open the piece behind the decorative flap directly up the middle, then up each side. This gave me barely a 1/4” of fabric to work with, but it worked!

I cut out a pocket fabric similar in colour to my pants. I made the pocket as wide as the opening and long enough to fit my phone plus 2”. I used a quilting cotton because that is what I had on hand, but you could use any other scrap of woven fabric you have on hand. Using my Janome AT2000D Air Thread serger, I serged all edges of my pockets to prevent them from unravelling in the wash. I don’t want any holes in my pockets!

Attaching the pockets to the pants was a bit tricky because I didn’t have a lot of fabric to play with. I also needed to seal the raw edge of the pocket opening somehow. I folded down the new pocket bag edge 1/2” so I could wrap it around the exposed edge of the cut pocket. Now the task of sewing that on with so little space. 

Enter the Janome Zipper foot! I LOVE using my Janome Zipper foot (E) any time I need to get super close to an edge. It’s not just for zippers! I was able to sew the pocket bag on and enclose the edge in one fairly easy step. 

The last thing to do was sew up the sides of my new pocket bag. I kept my Janome Zipper Foot (E) on to accomplish this. I did have to break out the needle and thread for some hand sewing at the top. It was just too tight to get into the last little corner. 

Just like that, I now have functioning pockets! Now to repeat this process on my other two pairs of pants!. 

Stitch on!!

AmandaBee