Here’s a quick project to jump start your Sewjo!

Last Memorial Day I hacked the Grainline Studios Hemlock tee in to a cute t-shirt dress with patch pockets. I was never really sure that I liked the look of a patch pocket on me. I guess it just felt a bit juvenile when I wore it. After thinking about it all year I finally decided to take them off and put in my favorite in-seam pockets. While doing that I decided I might want to narrow the dress a bit from the hips down to give it a little more of a cocoon shape as well.

First I dug out my homemade pocket pattern from my stash. I made this a couple years ago for my Lodo dress. Now I use it for pretty much every dress I want to add pockets too. There was no special method. I just drew a pocket shape around my hand, then gave myself some wiggle room and seam allowance. There’s probably a better formula but this is just how I do it. I found the same gray jersey knit I had previously used for this dress and cut my pockets out.

Luckily I had originally sewed the patch pockets on with a double needle so removing them was super simple. You could see where the patch pockets had been after I removed them, but I knew that would iron out with a little steam.

Next I figured out where I wanted to angle the sides in to give it a more cocoon shape. It ended up being a little over 3 inches down from the arm pit. I used my clear ruler and rotary cutter to cut through both front and back layers making sure to do a smooth transition with no weird points or angles in there. Then I figured out where I wanted the pockets to go which was 9 inches down from the armpit.

I used my overlock machine and sewed the pockets on to the front and back layers separately first. Then I sewed down the sides, around the pockets and to the hem to finish it off.  To keep the overlock stitch from unraveling I always do a little zig zag stitch over the last 1/2 inch or so of the overlock seam.

Start to finish this project took about 30 minutes. You could easily do this to any dress you’ve been wanting to add pockets to. I don’t know why I always put off these small projects for so long. I’m so much happier with the inseam pockets but it was fun to try the patch pockets.