Sewing Alterations: Stitch Hidden Pockets into Your Clothes!

1. Introduction to Pocket Class: It's so frustrating to me when I find a beautiful vintage dress and it doesn't have pockets. In this class. I'm going to show you how to sew in a hidden pocket to your favorite piece of clothing. Whether that's a dress or shorts or skirt, anything that has a seam down each side will be able to. So in these pockets, My name is more and marks. I'm a clothing designer. I use vintage fabrics to create fun and colorful shirts and dresses when I'm not designing and so on. Solving for sale, I love to improve upon pieces that I already have in my closet. Making functional alterations with your sewing machine is a skill that I'm excited to share with you. This class is in advanced beginner sewing class. You should be comfortable using a sewing machine. I want you to feel happy in your clothes. And I think that adding pockets is going to help. 2. What Clothing to Add Pockets To: To sell in a hidden pocket or side pocket, you'll need to open up this side hip seems when choosing an article of clothing to add pockets too, there are some things to keep in mind. I don't recommend using something very expensive or very special for your first try. As we all know, practice makes perfect. I would start with something loose fitting and made with one layer of fabric at the hips. This Romberg does have a lining above the waist, but luckily the hip seams are not lined. So we'll be able to open these up easily. 3. Tools and Setup: Some items that you'll need are scissors. I like to have scissors for cutting paper and a good pair dedicated to fabric only. I love using a rotary cutter for fabric, but it's not necessary. You'll need some pins. A fabric marker or fabric pencil. These let you erase the markings with heat or washing. And a seam Ripper. I'll be demonstrating with this fairly basic Bernini sewing machine with a straight stitch loaded with all-purpose white thread. I'm using white for demonstration purposes, but would recommend you use a colored thread to match your fabric. You can So by hand, if you're comfortable with that, it's just going to take you a lot longer. You'll also need a pocket pattern, which I've provided cut-out to the solid line. An iron is also a necessity for any sewing project. In my book. I finished my raw edges with a surgery. This is totally optional. You can also use a pair of pinging shears which helps reduce frame. Another option is to so a zigzag stitch on the raw edge. You can also skip this step altogether if you don't mind the frame on the inside of your clothing item. 4. Choosing Your Fabric: I'm inclined to never buy brand new fabric. I love to use vintage and secondhand materials, which can be found in all sorts of places. Take a look around. You might have a spare pillowcase or oversized shirt handy to cut up. Maybe you even have access to grandma's old quilting stash. Secondhand stores and yard sales are great, inexpensive places to shop for materials. I also like using eBay to find deals on very specific materials. Things to keep in mind are the weight and stretch of the fabric. You want to make your pocket with a lighter weight than your clothing item, so it doesn't get bungee. You also should stay away from very stretchy materials as it will droop with whatever you put in the pocket. Color matching is up to you if you don't want your fabric to show at all. But maybe you want to make a secret party pocket, which is what I'm choosing to spice up this otherwise plain rubber. So to reiterate, when choosing your fabric, you want to make sure that it's lighter weight than the clothing item you're using. It's not too stretchy. You can match the color or not. You'll need about a half a yard. You'll be cutting out four pieces of fabric that are about eight by ten inches apiece. Now that we've figured out what clothing item to alter and have our fabric ready, we can begin our class project. Sewing hidden seen pockets. 5. Project Part 1 : For this project, we'll be cutting out for pocket pieces, using them to measure and mark our clothing item. Opening up the side seams so there's enough room to. So finally, sewing in the pieces will be ironing after each sewing step. And I'll be going over finishing touches. I encourage you to follow along and present a before and after photo of your newly pocketed piece. Let's begin. The grain of your fabric is the direction of the wave. You'll want to find the long grain of your fabric, which is where there is the least stretch. Pull with both hands to find this. Which will help you align your pattern piece when cutting out the pockets. Because we'll need to cut four pieces out to make two pockets. Go ahead and fold your fabric in half so you can cut out two at once. Align the arrow with the long grain of the fabric. Pin the paper in place. Using your fabric scissors, or in my case, a rotary cutter. Cut the fabric. Repeat this step to cut out another two pieces. Turning the pattern upside down. This step is to create a mirrored set of panels. You should have four panels for a right and left pocket. If I were making these pockets as part of an item to sell, I would finish the straight edge of these pocket panels at this step with my surgery. If you're adding pockets to a personal clothing item for your own use, you can absolutely skip this next step. This is a great point to finish the straight edge of the pocket because it isn't sewn into the folds of the clothing yet. Instead of a surgery, you can use pinky shears to cut a zigzag, which helps reduce frame. Or you can use your sewing machine does so a zigzag stitch close to the edge. Now that my panels are prepped, I'm ready for the next step, which is to open up the seams of my dress. I've determined how far down I want the pockets to start by trying on the dress and making a mark. I've decided to place them about four inches down from the waistline. I'll use a ruler to make the marks more noticeable, and I'll repeat on the other side. Now using your pocket piece, align the point to be about a half an inch above your mark and make a mark at the bottom of the pocket. Repeat on the other side. Now that we have our markings, get your seam Ripper. Get comfortable in your chair and carefully rip the threads from about one inch above to one inch below your markings. This might take some time depending on how many stitches your clothing item has. I enjoy this part. I can listen to a podcast and just zone out. Being careful not to rip the fabric. If you don't have a seam Ripper, you can use some sharp scissors, but it is easy to accidentally cut the fabric if you go this route. Now you should have an opening in your dress about ten to 11 inches long. You will likely have some thread pieces to tidy up. So get as much out of the way as you can. Now we will pin the new fabric pieces to these seams with the dress inside out. With right sides of fabric towards each other. Pin one piece of fabric aligning the straight edges. The pointed part should be a half an inch above your mark. Place a few pins as you align the fabric edges. Now you can add the second piece to the other side of this scene. Find the panel that will have the right side of the fabric away from you when aligning the left edge. This can get a little confusing, but just remember that your pocket sandwich will have the right sides of your fabric pressed together. Make sure that your two points are being pinned in alignment. Okay, now we have two Elephant Ears soon to become a teardrop. 6. Project Part 2: Now also these pieces along where we've pinned, starting at the point. Rearrange your pins if needed, and make sure no extra parts of your clothing item or in the way. Align the presser foot of your machine so your needle will be hitting just to the right of the original seam line of the dress or skirt. And make a note of what this seam allowance measurement is. Whether it is a quarter or half inch. You can use the notches and your presser foot as a visual reference while completing the stitch. Set your machine to a medium stitch length. And make sure it is set to be a straight stitch. Make sure also to have your machine loaded with the appropriate thread. So forward and backward at the beginning of your stitch to reinforce the top. So carefully down to the bottom of the pocket. Rearrange as you go and making sure everything is nice and flush. Make sure you're staying straight and sewing just to the right of that original seam line of the dress. So to the bottom edge and reinforced by sewing back-and-forth. To sell the other panel, it is helpful to flip the dress around so you're keeping the bulk of the fabric to the left. So this time you can, so from the bottom of the pocket piece up to the tip, you've pinned in place. So this should keep everything where it should be while you. So I'm making a visual know of that original seam line and getting my stitch to fall just to the right of it. Going back-and-forth to reinforce. Okay, Now that we have our two pieces sewn in, it's time to take it to the ironing board to flatten everything out. With the dress inside out, sandwich the pocket pieces together, and press along the stitch lines. Now we can take back to the sewing machine. And so the next step, align the dress seems starting at the top and smooth everything out. Depending on how accurately you place the two pieces they should align. It's okay if they don't align exactly. You can see that mine isn't perfect. This can be hidden when we sew together. Place a pin on the dress itself at the top, and pin the edges of the pocket together. Finally, pin the last open part of the dressing will be sewing from just above where we started ripping the dressing around the pocket. And down again. This time you'll be aligning your presser foot so your needle will hit along that original seam line. Start above your ribs, go back and forth a few times. I'm just double-checking that my stitch length is appropriate. Begin sewing along the original seam line and go down to half an inch below the start of the pocket tips. If your pieces aren't aligned well up here, stitch a little further down and make sure you catch both layers of the pocket fabric. Place your needle down and lift up the presser foot. Rotating the fabric so the pocket edges are on the right stitch with at least a half inch seam allowance around the edges of the pocket. Make sure that pieces are staying together as you rotate and readjust as you go. You can see my seam allowance is getting bigger and bigger. This is okay to not be so precise here as it is not going to be seen. It just makes your pocket a little smaller the bigger your seam allowance gets. We'll clean up the edges later. Make sure you catch all of the layers of fabric here, particularly the little flap underneath. You're going to sell right past your previous stitching, aligning your needle with addresses original seam line. Place your needle in the down position, lift up the presser foot and rotate the dress so the pocket is to the right. Put the foot back down and follow the original seam line all the way down, closing up the RIP portion of the dress. So back-and-forth to reinforce the stitch. Now the pocket is pretty much done unless you want to finish these raw edges. Oh, it's looking pretty good. Use your iron to smooth everything out. You might be tired at this point, and it's totally okay to leave the second pocket for tomorrow or another day. I've sewn in my second pocket on the other side of the dress. And now I'm going to use my surgery to get a nice finished edge. Again, you can use pink shares for this part or the zigzag stitch of your sewing machine, you're just going to follow along the raw edges. 7. Conclusion and Thanks!: Okay, with another pass of the iron, we're all done with our pockets. I'm so excited to have finished my pockets on the sun dress and I can't wait to wear it out on the town. To show off your project. Please take a photo of your clothing item with your favorite sewing tool poking out of the pocket and then submit to the project page. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with and what clothing items you altered to add pockets to. Thank you for taking my Skillshare class. I hope you learned some valuable skills and now you'll be able to alter your clothing to have functional pockets.