(somber music) - Someone clever once said
women are not allowed pockets in case they carried
leaflets to spread sedition, which means unrest. To you and me, a grandiose
word for common sense, fairness, kindness, equality. So ladies, start sewing dangerous coats made of pockets and sedition. (upbeat music) Now, I'm not aware of
any time at which pockets were prohibited for women in some way, but it kind of feels like that's where things are heading today. I've had way too many times
where I'm out and about, (peaceful music)
and I want to put something in my pocket, only to
realize that I can't. Somehow, I keep assuming that pockets will just sort of mysteriously
appear, but unfortunately, my closet's magical abilities
are distinctly subpar, so I guess I'm just gonna
have to do it myself. (regal music) This project is actually
a great opportunity for me to go ahead and look
through my past project scraps or my cabbage bag to see if there's any bits of fabric that I think
will work well for a pocket. I'm looking for pieces of
fabric that are fairly thin that I think will work
well underneath dresses, even better if you have any fabric scraps from the time that you
made the dress originally, although for today, almost all of these are going to be dresses that I purchased, so unfortunately, I don't have
any exact matching fabrics, but you know what, we'll make do. First, we're gonna do the
simplest style of pocket, the kind where you just
stitch it into a side seam. I like my pockets to be pretty darn roomy, so you know, big enough to
stretch out my hand inside, and to put a phone and
some keys and whatever. I like to have a straight
side for the side seam and then the top here is
actually not straight. It's not a complete right
angle to this side seam because if you have a skirt that instead of going straight
down the side of your body, which most skirts don't,
they actually have a little bit more of an
outward angle for your hips or even a lot of outward angle if it's something like an A-line skirt, so this now becomes almost
in line with your waist. This is a bit of a variable that you might want to
adjust from dress to dress, depending on your garment that
you're attaching a pocket to, but it's something to keep in mind. (peaceful piano music) Here is my first victim. One side is a zipper, so I'm actually not gonna
put a pocket on this side, but the other side seam is
totally a perfect candidate, so what I'm gonna do is
after the waist seam here, I'm going to seam rip open
this side, about this much. (peaceful music) All right, so we have
turned her inside out so we have access to these seams here, and I have un-stitched the waist and these are free because I'm
gonna need access to these. So I'm gonna attach the bottom seam here to the pocket, just like that. Make sure that it does go
up at least to the waist because you're gonna wanna secure the top of the pocket to the waist. (upbeat music) (sewing machine whirring) So, first seam done. I did a pretty narrow hem here because this is surged
on the original garment, and on this side, we have salvage, so I'm not really worried
about either of these doing a whole lot of
fraying, so narrow it is. Now to do the second half. I've got an empty flap
here and an empty flap here and we are going to combine these. (upbeat music) All right, so both sides of our pocket are now nice and attached. Now, this is the front, so
this is the stomach area here, and you can see this is our waist line, and the pocket tilts up,
so it looks we can actually go ahead and get away with trimming this little corner piece away. And then next, I'm gonna go ahead and stitch the top of
this to the waistband. That's gonna help take the weight of whatever we put in the pocket here and hold it all up just
a little bit more evenly rather than letting the side seam here hold all of the weight,
so it makes everything just a little bit more even. (sewing machine whirring) All right, so pocket number one down. I don't wear this dress very often because it's a little bit more
slim than I usually go for, but maybe I'll wear it now more often because it's got a pocket. It is distinctly a very different fabric, but it's kind of fun,
kind of cute, why not? I admit, it is kind of weird not to be able to put
both hands into a pocket, but I didn't feel like
messing with the zipper, so. (sad music)
There's definitely no chance that I accidentally seam-ripped open the wrong seam and totally sewed the
pocket to the wrong seam. Nope, absolutely no chance of that, but I am going to, for no reason at all, recommend that you double-check what seam you're seam ripping open. A little tip. All right, for the second pair of pockets, which I'm actually gonna
be able to do a pair because it doesn't have
a zipper on the side. I'm gonna go ahead and stitch this, flip it right side out,
and then stitch it again, so I'm effectively creating
kind of a little French seam along this outer edge for a finished edge. You know, for variety. Variety is the spice of life. This is a very thin, thin, thin fabric, so I'm not too worried about it creating bulk underneath the skirt. So let's see how that goes. (peaceful music) All right, I have a pair
of prepared pockets. Ooh, look at all that alliteration, and now I'm gonna go ahead and
open up the two side seams. I have one side seam open. Let me find the other one and go ahead and seam rip that open. So, same as the last pocket. I'm gonna go ahead and pin this in place where it needs to go on the side seam, stitch the two sides,
and then do any sort of little finesse work I need to do by hand. Two pockets down and many more to go, but let's focus on the
two we've succeeded on. This pair went pretty smoothly, and while I still don't
have matching fabric, at least the white matches
a little bit better than that last dress. For the third pocket, I'm going to get a little bit adventurous and
try to do some welted pockets. I think that they'll fit really nicely between the stripes here and it'll work well
for where my hands are. I've never tried welts before, but I have gandered many a diagram, and I have confidence I'll figure it out. So from what I understand for the welt, I'm gonna go ahead and
put the welt fabric, which is this red velvet down first at the bottom of the welt, so to speak. I realize that's kind of weird
because it's at an angle, but the bottom, and then
whatever I want to be the main lining for the
pocket towards the top. In this case, it's this
thin black that I had. So right now, I have those two pieces stitched to the right side
or the outside of the skirt. Now, I'm going to cut open the center here and go ahead and slip those inside. Then I think what I need to do is sort of iron this all flat
with the lining pointed down and the welted velvet
fabric pointing up sort of. Yeah, let's do some ironing
to get this worked out. Once everything's lying
fairly smoothly-ish, I can go ahead and stitch
around the kind of flaps inside, which will become the pocket. I do apologize, this is not exactly the most clear demonstration
of how to do a welted pocket. I'll try to look up some links and include those in
the description for you. So, the third set of
pockets, the third garment, and the first set of
welted pockets, are done. I am very pleasantly surprised. I have not made welted pockets before, but I looked up a diagram
and made it happen, and while I can tell
that they're not great, there's definitely some
gaping on the side here where you shouldn't be able to see the lining of the pocket but you can, but you know, I'm kind of not mad at it. Like, I don't think I would be embarrassed to walk around the office
with these pockets. I don't think anybody would notice them as something weird or super homemade. I don't know that I'm gonna be doing a lot more of these on
the rest of the dresses. They look gorgeous, but they take forever. I will probably do at least
a couple more, though. You know, good practice.
(regal music) So, next up is this cute
little red dress that I love, although of course, it
doesn't have pockets, and unfortunately, it
does not have side seams, which I was kind of
totally planning on doing a very normal inside hidden
style pocket for this one, but without side seams, I
decided that it was worth it to go ahead and maybe get
a little bit creative, and I'm doing a sort of reverse applique kind of
situation on this one. So, I'm opening up a little heart-shaped hole inside of the skirt, and adding the pocket
as part of that hole, which means it's very cute when it's on. It looks very decorative, but
is a sneaky, sneaky pocket, and I'm really excited about this one. (regal music) I think it worked surprisingly well. I was not sure, but I
was kind of willing to sacrifice this dress if it didn't, and what's cool about this as well is that I have wanted to
make this dress longer. It's another reason I
don't wear it very much, because as you can maybe see here, the outside fabric has shrunk and the inside fabric, the lining, is longer than the outside
fabric, which is cool. So, at some point, I need
to also lengthen the skirt, and I don't have fabric that matches, but I can now use the same fabric that I used for the pocket hearts, and I think that will be really cute. Next up, I have a pair of
wool skirts that I love a lot, and unfortunately, neither
of them have pockets. They do, however, have some really lovely, clean, accessible, easy side seams though, so I think I'm just gonna do
your standard side seam pocket. Nothing exciting for these. One thing that I will be
doing with these, however, that's maybe a little bit different from some of my other dresses is that these are not super full at the waists. They're actually relatively fitted from waist to just a little
bit below the hip bone, so putting the pocket in there, I think would create
more bulk in the skirt than would really look nice. I think it'll look better
and fit better if I start the pocket kind of down at
about hand height or so. Here is my skirt and I've
marked with a pin here on the side seam where I
want the pocket to start, and I've done the same thing
on the other side seam. I was looking through my bag of scraps and really wasn't finding
anything that matched this at all. I have lots of red, not
a whole lot of pink. I could have done a
completely contrasting pocket, sort of like I did on some
of the previous skirts, but I really like this one and I kind of really want this
to have a matching pocket, if at all possible, so I
did some digging around and found an old mock-up
that I seam-ripped apart and then ironed all the seams flat and this will do just fine. You might be able to tell from the shape that it used to be a pair of hose, or rather a mock-up for a pair of hose, and now it's gonna be a pocket. (gentle music) (sewing machine whirring) To attach the pocket, I sewed it to the first
seam on the one side, the second seam on the other side. Now, I am going to stitch
along this pocket edge here, and yeah, we will have a pocket. (sewing machine whirring)
(gentle music) They are done. They're definitely a little bit lower than what I would consider
normal or usual, but. Definitely not the kind of pocket that you're just gonna
casually keep your hands in because they're not
really placed for that, but they will work just fine for holding cellphones and
keys and things like that, which is one of the
things pockets should do. So, second try with the long skirts. I think that I'm not gonna place it quite so low on this one. Maybe I'll aim for kind
of the middle ground between way too low on my last skirt and kind of your traditional
right up next to the waistband. (upbeat music) One downside of this
whole pocket situation is that generally your pockets
are gonna face forward, you know, like when you put your hands in. It's almost always in the
same direction, right? Towards the front of the body. This seam was previously
pressed the other way and stitched into the various, you know, waistband and hem the same way, so what I have done is
I seam-ripped that open, I've ironed it the new correct way, and now I'm gonna stitch this back up. (upbeat music) Pair of skirts down. I think that the slightly higher placement on this one is good. Also, this skirt is just a
smidge looser than that pink one, so it also just works well
that it's a little bit higher. It has a little bit more
room up here to fit things, and I've tried to be very meticulous and careful with this one because I really, really like this skirt, so I wanted it to be as neat
and cute and perpetually wearable as possible.
(dogs barking) What do I want to work on next? I definitely have a few dresses that I'm a little dubious as to how I'm gonna do the pocket on them, like this red one with very kind of thin floaty layers making up the skirt. Because there's definitely
no side seam here. I think for this one that what I can do is make a horizontal pocket that
goes through the waist seam, so it would go straight down instead of sideways like a
lot of side seam pockets. I think that might work,
so let's give it a try. (upbeat music) (record scratching) So, I just did something very exciting. I'm so used to working with linen and wool and to some extent cotton that I kind of perpetually have my iron set on kind of the absolute hottest
temperatures it can do. It's just, that's my normal go-to. Unfortunately, when you buy an
outfit from the thrift store, you don't always necessarily pay attention to the fact that it's not
your usual fiber content. This actually has no tag other
than M for I assume medium. I have now learned it is definitely very, very distinctly plastic. Look at this beautiful hole that I have ironed into the side of my dress. Glorious. It has a pocket now, but also a hole. I don't know yet whether
I want to try and patch it or if I just wanna say, well, I gave it as good a life as
I could until I couldn't. Whatever the case, it's going to the out of my sight pile for a while, I think. I have gone through my
clothing and pulled out the dresses that I am
either completely sure or very, very strongly sure are pretty much just all plastic. I love them, I've worn them
many a time in the past, but I find myself reaching
for them less often. For some of them, hardly ever at all, and part of that, yes, is fiber content. Part of that is also the lack of pockets, which is the whole point of this video, but also, a lot of these
are my more vintage or vintage-inspired type outfits, a little bit pin-up-y, because
you know, fun and cute, and I just don't wear
that very often anymore, so maybe it is time for this to go away to someone else who will enjoy them, and you know, before I
try to put pockets in them and burn more holes in my dresses. Yes, I can turn my iron down, but I won't. So, I think it is just
time for these dresses that I don't wear anymore to go. (whooshing)
Moving on, after all of that fun,
I have my next dress. You guys have probably seen
me wear this a few times. I really love this one and all of its many, many panels, as it leads from a more fitted top to a full skirt, very fun. I've already cut out my pocket shape. Just a normal little side seam pocket, like most of the ones
I've done so far today. Should be nice and easy. (gentle music) (sewing machine whirring) I did not do a very good job of making these two seams line up. Like, at all. What the heck, why do you guys watch me? Well, anyways, I'm going to just go ahead and pretend that doesn't exist. I'm gonna start stitching
here and around the pocket. (gentle music)
(sewing machine whirring) So, I feel like these pockets
look pretty ding dang good. I think that they look like
they are part of the dress. Magic! You know, in video games,
how you grind a skill over and over and over and over? You know, you keep
jumping, you keep running, you keep swimming, you keep
hitting things with sticks until you gain levels in that thing. I feel a little bit like I've
gained a couple pocket levels, which is very exciting. I feel like I'm getting better and better at making them look like
how they're supposed to. I only have I think three
more, looking at my pile. All right, let's get to it. All right, next day, next pocket. So, I have another sort of
cream colored type tan dress, and I may have cut out
extra pockets yesterday when I was also working on a
tan dress because I knew that they would also work well with this one, so I'm gonna go ahead and
sew it in, side seam style. (upbeat music)
(sewing machine whirring) So, we have one more pocket down. Again, it's amazing how
much nicer the pocket is when it's the same color
as the garment itself, so that is looking pretty dang good. I'm gonna go ahead and
make the second one. Yeah, I might be getting a
little tired of pockets though. (whooshing)
All right, another pair of pockets down. Ba, ba, ba, ba. I'm glad that this is getting done because I think that my day-to-day dress and skirt wearing enjoyment
will be much higher because I have a place to put my hands, depending on where I put the pocket, and more importantly,
a place to put stuff. It's so nice to not have
to take a purse everywhere. So, next up is actually this
same dress, but in green. So I'm going to seek out some green fabric that is the same color as
this guy and pocket him up. (upbeat music) (sewing machine whirring) All right, we are done, folks. I am well be-pocketed. I can carry so many things
and that is fantastic. So I did sort of have one more dress that I had in my pile of
does not yet have a pocket. After looking at it a
little bit more closely, I decided that it's a vintage dress that isn't in the most
hearty of conditions. It is a little bit delicate. There really isn't a good
place to put a pocket on this. There's no side seams and I
definitely don't want to add a big old patch pocket on this lace. It's a special occasion dress and it's allowed to just live
its life as it wants to be. If you do any sort of
similar self-challenges or projects like I'm
doing today for yourself, you're the one making the rules. You are absolutely allowed to decide what things you want that
project to apply to or not. Well, this was a lot of fun. I feel like I know so much more
about how to sew in pockets than I did at the start. I feel like I'm very, very well-versed in the side seam kind of standard
slip in hand type pockets. I did a couple welt pockets and I look forward to doing more of those. Those look really cool when you're done. You just kind of have to commit because they're a little
bit non-refundable as far as sewing goes, and I
look forward to future projects that maybe I could incorporate
a fun little patch pocket on. There wasn't really any dresses here where I felt like that fit,
but you know, some day. I think that one of the things that I kind of really
appreciated about this project is that it felt kind of like a way to show appreciation for my clothing by giving it continued
care and maintenance. I feel like that shows a
sort of love to our clothing that we don't always
take the time to provide. I mean, goodness knows I didn't for years, so this is something I
wanted to do for a long time and I'm happy that I finally did. If you decide to take on your own sort of pocket all of the things
project, be sure to let me know. I'd love to see what you're working on, especially if you make any patch pockets or like those reverse
applique window pockets. I'd love to see what sort of variations you guys might have on that, and you know, just keep on sewing those dangerous coats made of pockets and sedition.
Awesome! 😎
This is amazing and inspiring. Thanks for posting!
This is an awesome vid. The heart pockets made me grin ear to ear!
Thank you for posting this.