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