Suit-along: The Pockets on Your Jacket.

Well morning all

This morning Dr J. has returned to work after 2 weeks off. And it seems a little quiet here apart from the teenage boys, my son has had some friends stopping, but they are all still asleep. So it is just me and the dog for the moment and all is peaceful.  Not that it wasn't lovely having the Doc around and we did get so much done for the wedding plans, but now I feel I need to concentrate on a little bit of internet stuff and get some new items up on the website and Etsy store which I have kinda neglected of late. I also feel that I should re-vamp my blog so, hopefully, you are reading this with a new layout. And I hope you like it.


As I intend to be on the computer all day I didn't want to spend most of that writing a blog post though, so I thought that I would post up the second post that I wrote for the suit-along. Apologies to those who follow Lauren's (Wearing History) blog, but for those who don't follow that here is what I wrote for her:


Suit-along: The Pockets on Your Jacket.

Right then lovelies, you've sewn your skirts and marked all the sewing notations on to your jacket as per Lauren's last post and you're now ready to get your pockets sewn on. So there's how I did mine.

There are a number of ways you can go about pockets, the original instructions didn't go into any detail, but Lauren gave us more:

As she had already covered facing quite well and it is fairly similar I decided to do the 'cut a duplicate piece' method to make my pocket.

 I cut the pockets out of the main fabric and then placed the pattern piece onto lining material and using the same pins pinned it to the lining material and cut out.

 Since the iron was already set up, I even gave the pieces a little iron at this stage and then pinned right sides together around the 2 side edges and the curved top edge. I am going to leave the bottom side open to turn later.

 Start sewing at a bottom corner pivot at the top corners, leave the needle in, lift foot and turn material, but I'm sure you all know that, and then take it slow around the curved edge. This is where I came a cropper first time as I was carefully staying the same distance away from the edge all the way round the curve, but then some how ended up a lot lower and now in the centre. You'll see what I mean.

 So I stopped and undid that bit of sewing and then marked up where I wanted to sew with my disappearing ink pen, which I just love, but be warned wash out reside even if you can't see it if you want to make an heirloom. Or just use it on things that are for normal use, as I do.

 Then I re-sewed following the line instead, much easier.

Next stage is important if you want a nice smooth curve, because you can sew a lovely curve but without clipping and ironing it won't look good when turned. So carefully clip the edge around the curve getting as close as you can without cutting the sewing thread.  (If you do re-sew that part just a little further in).

 Cut down to the point in the centre and also cut the corners off

 and then give it a good iron before turning as this sets the thread in place somehow.

I like to understitch anything like this to stop any chance of the lining fabric showing. So next stage for me was to understitch, the side seams as far as I could. Understitching is sewing the lining to the seam allowance. 

 Understitched hem

 You can see the natural tendency is for the edge that has been understitched to lie so the lining isn't showing

 The rest I help out with my sewing knife, a blunt curve that can be held in the curve under the iron to help the whole flattening process. I now have 1 raw edge remaining at the bottom and I fold it under so the raw edges are inside the 'bag' area and iron flat, then when it is sewn onto the jacket there will be no raw edges to think about at all.

 Furnished pocket ready to go.

 I also decided to topstitch the top of the pocket with two rows of stitching to match the stitching to the jacket and stop any chance of the lining moving.

Here they are ready to go on to the jacket.]

I sewed them in place first before doing anything else to the front pieces, even ironing, well you know me. So mark where your pockets should be and the pin in the pockets place.

 and then sew on.

I sewed around the outside first with the needle set to the right hand position, down one side across the bottom and then up the other side. Without cutting thread or anything I then sewed 2 stitches across the top of the pocket and pivoted the material so I was then coming down the side I just sewed up. Then I followed the line of stitch and repeated leaving the needle at the right hand side. Without having a 2 needle facility on my machine, this is the best way I have come up with for doing this, if anyone has any better please let me know.



 So here are my pockets in place and I'm ready for the next step.

Did you notice my mistake, not reading the instructions first I sewed my top pocket onto the left hand side, so used to doing men's vintage shirts I guess. Well I'm not moving it now.

Hope all that might help some of you, and I look forward to getting to the collars stage next.  Can't wait to see all your creations too. 

Hugs and Kisses

Ally