Week 6 - Making the Gathered Pockets

After the great zipper install of last week, the gathered pockets will seem like a no brainer.  This is a nice simple technique that will give you a neatly finished lined gathered pocket.  Elizabeth has designed the pocket so that there is a lovely amount of gather, making the pocket very useful, but also it sews neatly into place at the base without the need for gathers or pintucks there.

This is a very simple technique to give you a neat lined and gathered pocket. You will take your two pieces of fabric and lie them wrong sides together, meeting three of the edges.  The top edge will look something like the picture at right.








You then need to fold over the excess fabric.  Firstly fold it along and over the top of the other fabric, and iron. Then unfold, and fold the top of the excess (or lining) in to meet the first fold. Iron again, and you might want to pin in place.  It should then look as it does at right, with the lining, folded neatly over the outer, concealing all raw edges.

You will then need to top-stitch this in place.  Stitch as close as possible as you can to the folded edge, on the side closest to the main part of the pocket.  This will ensure that the gusset you have made is as large as possible!  Following Elizabeth's intructions, measure in about an inch from each side at the base of the pocket, and cut off an angle of fabric from the base to the top.  This will help give a lovely gathered effect to the pocket, but keeps the base the same size as the backing piece.





You then need to feed through your piece of elastic. This is usually done by using a safety pin through the end of the elastic and guiding it through first.  The picture at right shows it coming out of the gusset after being fed through.  Note, you can also see here my top stitching at about 1/16".

I secured my elastic in place at each end with a few stitches 1/4" from the pocket gusset end.

The next phase is simply fitting the base of the pocket, to the underlay - which will be either the zipper pockets made in the previous week, or the inner lining sides.  Pin carefully along the base and sides, and sew in place, with a 1/4" (or less) seam.  This is not the final stitching on these pockets, but serves to keep them in place.

Look at me the goose who forgot to rotate her photos before she imported them into Blogger.... but below you can see a lovely set of gathered pockets on the zipper pockets, and below that, a set of gathered pockets on the lining of the sides.

A positively easy and short week this week.  It is so close to being a real bag!