Sewing Slant Pockets

A fun way to get started in pattern making is to work from an existing commercial pattern, something simple like an a-line skirt, a circle skirt, or a pair of pants with just side seams. Today we're going to work with an a-line skirt and create a slant pocket. The slant pocket will work from the existing pattern to make sure we retain the shape of the skirt we're working with. And then from there, we'll make those fun adjustments. So you see here, we have this a-line skirt and what we want to do is create that slant pocket. And you can do anything you want. You just lay your ruler out and start to look at, what's the right line that I want to achieve here. It's also good to stand in front of a mirror with a tape measure and get a sense from your waist to hip where you want that slant pocket to end. We're going to work with about an eight-inch drop and that ends up right about here. So here's our eight-inch drop just to say that's where our pocket's going to end. And then let's put the pocket in a couple inches. So that's going to bring us in about, two inches is about here, and I eyeball that, let's mark two inches and then let's see how we like how that looks. We also have to make adjustments for a 5/8ths-inch seam. So it's always nice to just quickly mark that seam allowance. So when you are making that pattern, you can say, ah, I already lose this much fabric. So let's take the design beyond that seam allowance line, which is what that alone, if we were to stick with that two inches, we have a very small opening. So let's open that skirt up a little more, and let's just play with this ruler to get, let's just draw this line and see how this looks. I think that's a nice opening, we got center front here, so it's not coming in too far, but you can do pretty much anything you want with a slant pocket. And as you get good at this, you can create this line to be, you could do definitely a much straight line if you wanted to use a straight edge, you could also begin to do a curve, loop, whatever you want, but the first, starting with just a first basic, somewhat straight line, then you can definitely be as creative as you'd like to be and be inspired by whatever you see. So this is the line we're going to work with to create the opening of the pocket. We know our hands are going to fit in there well, and now we really need to create the pocket in which you can put your phone, you can put your keys or whatever the case may be. So let's pull it in at least another inch and a half. That'll give us a good opening up top. So mark that inch and a half. And we definitely want from the opening of the pocket, let's go about three inches below the opening. So we have a good three inches here. And, what I say here, an inch and a half here. Now we can really create the shape of the pocket. You could create a square pocket where you just bring this down and bring this in and you can begin to see how the shape of your pocket, but let's bring it out so you've got a little more room for whatever it is you're carrying in your pocket or want to put in your pocket. Let's just do a nice line over to here. And let's bring a line over to here. Let's just see how this looks. And the good news is we're just drawing, we can always change things, erase things. Make sure that that is something you can see, so. A nice pocket, I'd actually like it, I always put my hand on it to feel like it was a big enough. Could I slip my hand in there? And I think I'm going to go with a slightly larger and as we go to the larger, let's round it out. So rather than a square, we have a nice round shape. But you can just begin to pull together. We're going to go out a little. And then we're just going to curve it in. And we'll probably end up bringing it in a little deeper. And this is, you've seen pockets that you love in what you currently have in your wardrobe, and you can pull from that. Different patterns that maybe you even used in the past and how they form it. So we have a nice, slightly curved line. And it's got a little more room right here. So we're gonna go with that line. Now to transfer this, to make sure that what. In the end, we're going to have all these pieces layered on top of each other within the same outline of the current pattern. So I'm going to pull in some tracing paper, you can get this at your local fabric store and you essentially, and you have your paper here. You can use any paper you have. Depending on if it's a small enough pocket, you can just use paper from your copying machine, an eight and a half by 11. As you should get bigger, you can buy some rolls of paper. You can also use tissue paper, whatever works for you. We're gonna take this tracing paper and use it like carbon paper and we're gonna use it laying face down, make sure it's where the lines are. And this is where we will also pin a bit of this pattern to our pattern paper. Just to make sure that nothing's moving. Once you start moving around with the tissue paper, the tracing paper, it may start to move the whole pattern. Okay. So we got the tracing paper underneath, and we're just gonna take a basic wheel here, get one of these at the fabric store, craft store as well. And we're just going to run the wheel over the line that we just created with our pencil. So we just go right here and I go back and forth a little bit just to make sure it's in there good. Otherwise, sometimes it comes up pretty light. So just back and forth on that. And the other thing you have to watch out for, the tracing paper's pretty narrow, so you do have to move that tracing and paper around a bit. The other thing we will do is we'll also create an outline of the skirt where the pattern, where the pocket's going to be. So we'll just keep going on the outside. And then we also want to do, so now we've done the whole outside perimeter of the pocket, we also want to put where the opening is on that slant pocket. We're going to mark that as well. So we're going to have all these markings on the paper underneath. And let's just pull it back and make sure we have all the markings. So you can see they all did come through. Now we can clean these up and create both pocket pieces, both the pocket lining and the pocket piece as well that we'll create from here. So I think we're good to go. We have this. I also want to create just a couple of notches. So we'll put a notch right about here, let me see. Where all the pattern pieces meet. So you want something between these two sections that we can come to later and I'm going to mark that with a notch here. And I'm also going to just mark that with my tracing paper. And we'll also want to mark where this notch is. So when we're meeting up the back of the skirt, we'll have, 'cause this piece will be gone later, we'll want to make sure we have that tracked. So I'm gonna flip that back and I'm just going to begin to make a few updates here with my pencil just so I don't forget that there was a notch here as well. Okay. So let's quick take this pattern piece off. We won't come back to the commercial pattern now for a little bit as we will be working on creating the pocket lining as well as the pocket piece. So I'd like to, now we have a good trace of where this is. We're just going to go in with a pencil and begin to draw this piece again. And it is nice to have a ruler that, if you have a French curve at home or one of these hip armhole rulers, whatever works, it is nice to have something that has multiple different shapes to it. If you want to get that little, that rounded look. And as I did this, the other thing I forgot to mention, we'll quick lay this back on here is we need to make sure that we have marked the grain lines, without the grain lines, our pocket may not lay in the skirt as nicely as we'd like. So let's just quick, latest down again. We know that our grain line is right here on the center front. Let's pull in exactly. We want to make sure that we're hitting both pieces. So seven inches in let's mark here, and then let's mark again, seven inches and create our new grain line. We'll need to trace that in as well. So now we have an additional grain line for those pocket pieces. And we will also put that on the tracing paper. There we go. Glad I didn't forget that when we had gone too far. So this worked out perfect. We'll quick mark that so we know it's not a design line, it is actually our grain line. And I actually will pull this in even further just to make sure we have that marked. We have a pretty straight, we still have a slight hip line from the pattern. So you can see, our pocket is really starting to come together. Now we're going to split, once I get this next piece done, we're going to split this into two separate pieces. So we see this one full piece is going to be the main pocket where this little section here is exposed, and then we have the pocket lining. So we now need to separate these two pieces. So we're gonna quick cut this one bigger piece out. And we're going to now make one smaller piece for the lining, which is this smaller section right here. So back out with the tracing. Well the good news is actually, let me just finish cutting this, we can just outline the paper with our pencil, we don't have to use the tracing paper. Just lay it out there. We will quickly trace. And I'm going to pin this down again as well. Since we will be using a pencil around the edge to get that. And then we just follow that really quickly with a pencil. And a dull pencil always works better in a situation like this. If it's too sharp, you can quite... Just walk it along. And we got a mark our notch right here again. Then we're going to quick trace this other line. We don't want to cut up this one pattern. So we're going to use our tool again and quickly trace where this opening part is. Sometimes these wheels can have a little bit of give in here, so you have to hold them at one angle or another to make sure that, and see there, we got our lines. So voila. Almost have our second pattern piece. See how easy this is? I think it's intimidating at first, but once you deconstruct one, you're good to go. And we got our notch. We can't forget about our notch. Voila. So now we have our pocket lining. And our pocket. And then they nest into each other. So let's quick cut these out. And one thing I like to do before I begin to cut out of the fabric is make sure that we pull back the original pattern piece and make sure that everything is fitting on top of each other like we would expect. So we'll lay this back out. And our pocket fits on there exactly right so we've got the same hip curve and... This lays on here just like that. So I think we're in great shape. Now all we need to do is sew it together and we'll have a pocket. So let's quick, sew it together. Just for fun, so you can see how this whole thing works out. So we'll just pull out some fabric here. And I always think about this. Once I get ready I realize that we did not put the, I did not put the grain line on the second piece, which is very simple, 'cause we can see right where it's at here. There we go. So we're going to make sure that we've got this lined up with our grain line. My ruler always gets all flippy floppy. So we're good. And if you were doing this on both sides you easily can transfer, you can either do a slant pocket on one side of your garment, or you could do it on both sides of your garment. Really up to you on what inspires you and how you want to make your look. The same thing would apply. If you were doing pants, sweatpants, circle skirt, anything with a side seam, essentially you can pull a pocket into it. You can do just a patch pocket on the outside. Okay, so we have our two pattern pieces. You can also do your pocket lining in a lining material. So if you'd like, instead of doing, if you have a heavier fabric, you can just make that a thinner fabric that matches the lining your garment. You can do contrast lining. Something fun like a pop of hot pink Whatever inspires you and really creates a fun piece. So now we have our full pocket cut. Let me forget, I got them mark my notches. So that we'll make sure that everything lines up at the end here. Okay, let's go ahead and lay this on top of, I already cut out the basic skirt here In this fun butterfly fabric. And we know that we have a slight slant, so we're going to transfer, I just want to make sure we have transferred our notch here, so now we have a new notch on. Let's quick mark that. I just wanna make sure everything lines up so when this is all done, it lays perfectly flat. And we're going to quick cut, I got my notch lined up here. I want to quick cut the slant open. Cut it out, actually, I should say. Okay so, let's take the lining piece. This'll be the piece that really won't be seen. And let's sew that down. Clean up my space. It gets a little messy when you're pattern-making, you got all these different tools. And what we're going to do is we're just going to sew the section that you're gonna see right here first. And just do an edge of the foot. It depends on how open you want it. If you did allow for a 5/8ths-inch seam, you can do that as well. I'm just going to edge the foot because I was pretty happy with the opening I had already laid out on the pattern. When you're sewing a seam like this, also note you could put piping in here as well. Just something fun to really call out the pocket. We are not going to understitch. Another thing you can do once you iron this is understitch this down so it folds really nicely like this. So you see, we have our lining, like this. Now all we have to do is attach the pocket here. Now we've got the same notch. We're going to match our notches. There's our notch, all three notches match. So we're still keeping to the same fit of the original garment. And pull that up. And we're going to quick stitch around this part. So now we're closing the pocket hole shut. And here again, you can do edge of the foot, you can do 5/8ths, whatever you feel comfortable with. You also want to seam finish this pocket as you, once you're done with the main stitch like we're doing here and I would just seam finish it the same way you're seam finishing the rest of the garment. So with a serger or whatever kind of overcast stitch that you may be doing. Okay. So as you see here, we have this flap. Lay this here. We have a slant pocket. So this turned out great. You could have fun, put a little red piping in it. The only other thing you'll need to do before you sew it to your waistband is just to tack this down. Tack it down right here, tack it down right here. And it actually essentially then acts again as a single pattern piece as we had earlier. And we can just double check to make sure everything laid out the same. Voila. You got yourself a slant pocket, something fun and different. Sew it as you would your regular piece, and you're good to go. So I have a few examples to show you where I love to put slip pockets in things. And you'll see also that I pull in piping. So here's an example of a basic skirt, pulled in a sleet pocket and highlighted it with piping, really pulled together all the different reds and the pop within the pattern of the piece. This piece, I did a solid white lighting underneath so we didn't have the pattern showing through. Over here we also have another example of the slant pocket, very similar to this other dress. Another way to pull in color, pull in a little bit of design elements into the pieces. So I hope this gets you really comfortable and feel like you can be inspired by something so simple as a slant pocket to really pull together something fun, unique, and different that's all your own. Have fun.