Pockets: Zippered Welt Pocket Done Properly

Hey!

A long time ago, I wrote the Pocket Series, which was a manic string of tutorials on making 25? 26? different pockets. It was meant to be a bunch of short, quick tutorials so that even the beginner-est of us could feel confident adding pockets to the various projects they were working on. One of those pockets was the zippered welt pocket. In the writeup, I mentioned (in para 3 of that post) that the method demonstrated was not the usual one I used to make that kind of pocket but I went ahead anyway because it was a short-cut version that could be finished in a few, easy-to-visualize steps. I never did get round to showing you the actual method I use, did I? Let's do it today, then, almost two years later!

These photographs (but not the method or instructions; these were rewritten and changed for this tutorial) are conveniently borrowed from the Bella Bag pattern that's still in the testing lab(s), which explains why the big orange piece of fabric is  strangely called the Lining Back. It's just to distinguish it from another piece of the lining, fancily called the Lining Front, but it doesn't matter in this tutorial. Suffice it to say that the big orange piece is the surface in which you want the zippered welt pocket to  be situated. My apologies for the inconsistent photo sizes - they were shrunken to whatever works for the bag pattern document layout after annotating and couldn't be re-enlarged without compromising their resolution.

You will need:

• The main fabric where the pocket is to go (called the Lining Back in this tutorial)
• A piece of fusible interfacing that has the welt (i.e. the slit opening) cut out of it, and fused in position to the WS of the main fabric
• Thin cotton fabric for the pocket lining (aka the pouch)- this should be twice the height of the pocket, and wider than the welt by at least 2"
• Thin cotton fabric for the facing - it's white in this tutorial for visibility, but you should really make it in a color that matches the main fabric, so it doesn't show. This  should be at least the same size as the piece of welt interfacing
• A zipper, that should be at least 1" longer than the welt.

Step 1

Pin the facing to the main fabric (remember that in this tutorial, it has the funky name of Lining Back) so that

• the facing is on the RS of the main fabric
• the RS of the facing is touching the RS of the main fabric
• the facing is directly behind the welt interfacing

Pin in place.

Step 2

Sew exactly on the long edges of the welt (black dashed lines). Backstitch at each end, make both lines exactly the same length and don't sew the short edges of the welt. 

Then cut the welt open along the blue line shown, including the V-shaped cuts towards the corners of the welt. 

Step 3

Pull the facing through the open welt to the WS of the main fabric.

and press it flat. The welt itself is ready. Set aside.

Step 4

Line up one long edge of the zipper tape with the top edge of the Pocket Lining aka pouch (this will be one of its short edges) so that

• the WS of the zipper touches the RS of the pouch
• the zipper is centered across the width of the pouch

Sew close to the zipper coils to hold the zipper tape in place.

Step 5

Place the zipper-and-pouch ensemble behind the welt so that

• the pouch is now upside down i.e. most of the pouch fabric is above the welt
• the RS of the zipper peeks out from the welt i.e. the RS of the zipper touches the WS of the main fabric
• the zipper pull is within the welt (and not hidden in the seam allowance on either side of the welt)

(RS of main fabric)

(WS of main fabric) 

Step 6

Fold down the pouch fabric on the stitching/basting line made in Step 4 so that all the pouch fabric is now lying below the zipper. Press this fold. 

On the RS of the main fabric (i.e. so you can see the welt window), topstitch (blue dashed line) through all layers along just the bottom edge of the welt to hold the zipper and pouch fabric in place. Some folks like to topstitch on just the RS of the welt and avoid the pouch fabric, which is perfectly OK. Since we are sewing very close to the coils (Step 4), topstitching through all the layers just helps hold the pouch fabric away from the zipper coils so the zipper pull doesn't catch on it. 

Step 7

On the WS of the main fabric, fold up the pouch fabric so that its bottom edge now meets the top edge of the zipper tape (turquoise arrow). Pin in place.

On the RS of the main fabric (i.e. so you can see the welt), topstitch around the remaining three sides of the welt (blue dashed lines). You have now secured the zipper and the pocket lining aka pouch fabric around the entire welt, and no raw edges are visible from the inside of the pocket.

Step 8

Now sew up the sides of the pouch to close it completely. Remember not to sew through the main fabric; just the two-layered pouch fabric (and, if you like, the facing). To do this, temporarily peel back the main fabric away from the rest of the layers so it is out of the way. It is actually easier to do this from the RS of the main fabric - if you just lift aside the main fabric, the pouch fabric will lie underneath. However, in the picture below, the WS is shown, to indicate the position of the stitching lines (purple dashed lines). 

The zippered welt pocket is now completed. Assuming this pocket was made in the lining layer of a bag (or whatever), all the unfinished exposed edges on the WS of the main fabric will be hidden away when your bag (or whatever) is sewn up, so there is no need to serge or otherwise finish any of the edges.

And that's how I do the fully-lined zippered welt pocket. Note that I only ever use zippered welt pockets in bags and purses. So far, I have never included this pocket in garment sewing. I can't think of a single woman's dress garment that requires this sort of pocket. Maybe they exist in casual sport jackets and casual men's/boys' clothes, none of which I feel a compulsion to make at this point in my life (or ever). And even then, wherever that occurs (like in boys' trouser pockets), I can easily substitute a regular set-in faced zipper within the seamwork of pant legs without having to actually make a welt. Actually, that same philosophy works for bag linings, too i.e. incorporate the zippered pocket into the actual seams of the lining and you will never really need a welt - unless you really want one.

I've added this link to the end of that original post, so people who find it in the archives can come back to this post and have this second option for making the zippered welt. 

Cardboard Carriage

Spur of the moment bit of work last night - this cardboard carriage for the girls' Barbies/Kens/Liv dolls. The girls have been playing Doll Ball (as in formal dance thing) and wishing for a carriage. They'd made their own in the past by converting their mini wagon into an open ride for the Ball participants but it got taken apart whenever they wanted their wagon back. So last night, even though I was supposed to be cutting out fabric for Bag Testing Stage 2, I put on a movie (Thor - sigh... I love Loki - there, I've admitted it in public) and picked cardboarding instead. 

I made it quite spacious, so it can be both private transportation (like a limo)

and mass transit.

I didn't take any step-by-step photos because it was late at night and I was distracted by all the dark shiny Norse costumes in the movie. So this morning I took my usual after-the-fact shots for you.

First, the carriage is just two flat pieces of cardboard with windows cut out and made 3D by a gusset. This gusset was rolled 

to wrap around the curves of those flat cardboard pieces.

The curly scroll thing is just rolled cardboard

with little stacks of cardboard separating the layers

 so it keeps it "open" shape and doesn't collapse.

The door was hinged (and scored) at its bottom edge

to fold down into a ramp

so the passengers could enter and leave the carriage without tripping over their stilettos.

The inside of the carriage was just two long seats, glued in before the gusset was attached.

The carriage harnesses to the lone garage-sale plastic horse (the one having a permanent bad hair day)

by two strips of cardboard glued and fastened to the front

and wrapped around the waist of the horse. The paper fasteners were largely decorative (since everything was also glued down) but this pair also served as a string clasp of the sort found on document envelopes.

The wheels were empty ribbon spools.

Two straws were glued and taped on the bottom of the gusset for axles,

with bamboo skewers running through them. The wheels were impaled and glued onto the ends of the the skewers.

And look: everything stores back inside it, even the horse!

Snuck it into their bedroom with a note. I like leaving stuff for them to find the next day - it buys me more sleep-in time. The girls are planning to decorate it and add little paper curtains today. And Emily suggested adding a raise-able convex roof. Although that might not happen till late, since we baked cupcakes and want to frost and eat them first. 

Pattern Update

Good morning, everyone!

Just wanted to pop in and give you a pattern update: the alpha version is done. This means the pattern is finished (written, photos all annotated, templates all scanned, sketches all made and imported, proofread  etc) but untested. Last night it went off to the testing lab and this week it will be put through its paces. In case you were wondering, I only have one pattern tester, but she is the best. I've tried having 10 pattern testers but you know what? You don't need multiple pattern testers with multiple levels of sewing experience to test a pattern meant for one particular skill level. You just need one - but she needs to be a person with considerable experience in sewing many, many bags from many, many other patterns; also a perfectionist, an extremely skilled seamstress, and a good enough friend so that she can properly critique the instructions without holding back or worrying about hurting my feelings or discouraging me or anything ridiculous like that.

If you've never written a pattern, I thought you might find my self-imposed timeline interesting -or (if it's not your thing) coma-inducing.

1. Decide to do instructions for a project I'm making (rather than just make-and-brag on the blog).
2. Decide if the instructions are short enough to be a free tutorial or require so much detail that they would be better as a multi-page pattern.
3. Decide to make it a pattern and begin visualizing the stages of construction.
4. Shop for fabrics with high contrast for good visibility in photos. Also shop for enough different fabrics to make multiple versions of the project for beauty shots.
5. Stage 1 testing: cut out several versions of the project, in multiple fabrics, putting aside one version for instructional photos.
6. Sew up the other versions of the project, making copious notes at each stage about which parts might be difficult to understand and which will require special photos/sketches and/or instructions.
7. Sew up the Instructional Version, taking photos of each step.
8. Re-size, edit and annotate the photos.
9. Write the instructions, including dimensions and importing photos into their relevant positions on the pages.
10. Write the introduction sections: overview, tips, materials list, glossary etc.
11. Print out, manually proofread (this was when I was lying in a hammock at the lake on the 4th of July) and check for comprehensiveness.
12. Take additional photos and draw additional sketches.
13. Draw templates to scale.
14. Scan and import all hand-drawn sheets.
15. Edit, crop, resize and annotate all new photos and sketches, and incorporate them into existing instructions.
16. Re-paginate entire document, correcting all references to old page numbers.
17. Check for size of document file - resize photos if necessary to reduce size to something most people's bandwidth can handle.
18. Print out for final proofread. Check templates print out to correct size. Alpha version completed.
19. Send Alpha version to testing lab.
20. Wait for testing lab to return feedback and photos. Meanwhile correspond with tester for real-time comments and feedback. Make edits to alpha version immediately (so won't forget).
21. Stage 2 testing: using actual instructions and templates of printed alpha version, cut out and sew at least two more versions of the project. Take notes on which parts do not flow with existing instructions or of additional instructions that must be added.
22. Combine own feedback with feedback from tester into Beta version of pattern, rescanning templates and editing photos and instructions in process. 
23. Proofread Beta version. Print out Beta version to ensure all things print within margins etc.
24. Decide on price of pattern.
25. Upload pattern to hosting site.
26. Take photos of projects for etsy store.
27. Decide on price of items, weigh them for shipping costs, list items.
28. Write blog post about new pattern, instructions for use and link to etsy shop for non-sewing readers to have option to buy items instead of making them.
29. Make pattern available for sale.
30. Get set for the next stage - obtaining mailing supplies for potential sales, checking email for download problems or questions regarding pattern etc.

We're at Step #19 of this process for the Bella Bag pattern, incidentally. Another 11 steps to go!

Notice that none of those steps even involve nutella? That's how serious pattern-writing is. I'm always exhausted after. It's never as simple as just writing a tutorial because everything has to be explained, down to the parts of a zipper and layout and grain, so readers know exactly what I'm talking about without me actually being there in person to demonstrate. And it needs so much concentration that I can only do it when the children are out cold which, in these hectic summer months, is later in the night than I'd like. And usually, after working on pattern-writing all evening, I need to end the day with something that's completely unrelated, like reading or painting. All this makes for long working days and it is also why I've thrown out numerous patterns in various stages of completion - some never made it past Step 3 (Decide that it should be a pattern) and some are aborted after all the photos were taken (Step 7) because I couldn't bear to invest any more time in it. The only thing more difficult to finish than a pattern is drafting and sewing clothes on a deadline. I've gotten really good at procrastinating on both!

So today, in the name of exhaustion, I'm going to a park with the kids. Tomorrow I'll begin work on Stage 2 testing - and hopefully, that gorgeous Orla Kiely bag will be born as a result of that happy process.

Thanks for all your patience, guys and for your interest in this pattern! It will be ready very soon!

Meeting

Blogging is a lonely business. By that, I mean that one can create and maintain an entire persona from the comfort of one's home and never actually interact with another human being (who isn't immediate family) face-to-face. One of the most drastic differences between my life as a stay-home-mum in the US and the one I had in Singapore was how ridiculously miniscule my social circle is now. This is not a bad thing - with the sort of responsibilities I have raising three smallish kids, I couldn't cope with a social life like the one I had pre-marriage-and-children. So I'm not complaining. It didn't, however, stop me from asking God when I first arrived in the US, to recreate my old social patterns. To which He very wisely- and gently- replied, "Child, you don't need 20 friends. You don't have the time for 20 friends. Here are 2." Gotta love God's sense of humor.

Every now and then, though, through my blog, I get to meet actual humans. Now, before I get to the good news, let me say that, as a rule, I am always suspicious of meeting online people in er... person because one never knows what such humans actually are in real life. For example, what if the ostensibly harmless homeschooling mother-of-seven you really connected with on some random blog were in fact a 48-year-old male serial killer, international terrorist or (worse) an anti-cardboard proponent? It's hard to tell until you meet them, isn't it? And even then, one should always carry a small test swatch of cardboard in one's purse to thrust in their faces - if they break out in hives or convulse on the floor, foaming at the mouth, immediately unfriend them on Facebook, block them on Twitter and also shoot them with your glue gun. Repeatedly ;)

The good news, however, is that so far, the blog people I've actually physically met have been really, really, really nice. And have also become friends over the course of corresponding by email and snailmail. I like to think of it as the powers-that-be enriching my social life in ways I never would have imagined, say, 20 years ago. Case in point: these two amazing ladies I had pie-and-tea with last Saturday:

That's Grandma G in blue, and Jessica Jones in pink-and-orange (of course). You might know Grandma G from her blog, her impeccable sewing skills and her awesome work as my bag pattern tester. Grandma G is as gracious and calm as I'd imagined and just absolutely lovely. And she didn't even once poke me in the back for procrastinating on that bag pattern I owe you all. Mercy personified. Juicy sewing nugget I learned about her: she once sewed a three-piece suit for her husband (yes, I had trouble scooping my jaw off the floor too). You can read Grandma G's account of how she got my kids to give her personalized artwork here. Save them, GG, for bragging rights when my kids are world-famous artists! 


And you might know her daughter Jessica from her blog, her graphic design work and her beautiful fabric lines that I use in many of my sewn stuff because they are so gorgeous. Jess is every bit as delightful, humorous and witty as she is online- and even more so now that we got to see her smile in person!  We had a truly wonderful time visiting with them -and Jess's husband Alex - an absolute treat!

Teaching Kids To Run A Business

So the kids convinced me to sign them up for the annual craft fair. This is the one run by the county's library organization, featuring handmade stuff by kids (not their parents) and in which everything sells for $2 or less. Very charming idea, and unfortunately one which I'd avoided like the plague in previous years because it's in the blistering August noontime sun and we're not allowed to charge what the work of the kids really deserve. I mean, there were kids who stuck a hair clip on a plastic flower and priced it $2 and there were kids who crocheted entire dishcloths and sold them for $1. Where is the justice?

I'd only ever done one craft fair in my whole life and I quickly decided that, much as I love mass-producing, sitting at a table covered with nondescript fabric items (what I sold) was not my calling in life. Give me a classroom of sewing newbies who don't know the difference between a seam and a selvedge any day!

But then, there was the idea of education.... not me teaching people to sew, but the kids learning how to run a business, that sneakily appealed to me. So I said to them, "Okay. It will be a good experience for you girls. Yes- even you, little Kate."

What to sell, though? That 4-year-olds could make, without overcrafty parents helping? I could think of a gazillion things to sell that were unique, crazy inventive and totally hip and made of cardboard. But for $2 or less? Opportunity costs aside, I couldn't bring myself to show such little respect for so supreme a crafting material.

The girls then suggested selling our vast collection of card sets that we'd made earlier in the winter. Perfect. Not unique by any stretch of the imagination and clearly a gross under-representation of the never-say-normal capabilities of my kids but they made them all by themselves and they were gorgeous. Plus, and most importantly, they were already done so no extra work for me, meaning I could continue enjoying my summer with no interruption. In other words, I could keep on swimming (hurrah)!

So the girls were set to work thinking up a business plan, including pricing, marketing, publicity and communication. I'd never studied Economics at school so I simply did this the common sense way. Jenna made a list of the things we needed to survive an afternoon under the scorching sun. 

Emily did market research ("we need kitty and puppy stickers because that's what I see a lot being sold in stores so it means people must like them!"). Everyone worked on developing a secondary line (little notebooks that used up the remnant cardstock).

We brainstormed marketing strategies

and discussed the rationale of price scales ("card sets with 5 or 6 cards should cost less than card sets with 8 cards"). 

We set out little plastic bags ("because all stores have them to carry home stuff in"). We talked about how to get small change for monetary transactions and how many quarters there are in a dollar. We designed and drew up signs. We emailed friends and invited them to come browse.

And we managed expectations. Oh, this part was soooooo important. The girls are so used to watching things fly out of my etsy shop now that they forget how slow sales were when I first opened it three years ago. And they don't know the crazy hard work that goes on behind the scenes to build a reputation and a market of potentially-interested buyers. Or getting featured in magazines and books to get one's name "out there". Or learning how to take half-decent photos that might possibly do justice to products that one has already spent hours making. Or driving to the post office in all kinds of weather, with small children, some still in rear-facing car seats. And filling out tax forms. And logging transactions and expenses and other inane numbers in pages and pages of spreadsheets (and forgetting to click "save" when one is done). Been there. And I'm soooooooooo still there.

And so we said to each other, "The fun is in the preparation, right? Are you excited? Who will help me plan the poster? What sort of jobs do you think we'll have on the day itself? Shall we take turns bagging items? Let's practise what to say to people who ask us questions! If we sell just one thing, it will be a bonus! Look at what you now know about running a real shop! I'm so proud of you! It's only four days away!"

(from Jenna's journal, the day before the Fair)

Today was the day.

After my first look at what was on the vendors' tables - including ours - I marveled at how different they were from what I'd been seeing on craft blogs. I mean, I was looking at real, regular people who made stuff like duck tape pencil toppers, Perler Bead coasters and the aforementioned plastic-flowers-glued-on-hair-clips. Perfectly artistic but not the sort of projects that were likely to end up on my pinterest boards. And therefore completely refreshing in their normalness. I loved it. I think that sometimes, crafty blogland is heinously insular in how it makes us think every other person is some crafting maven (also how it makes us pin, pin, pin - as if we're ourselves desperately boring and uninspired people). And, for what it's worth, I apologize to anyone who thinks that of our family because of what they see on this silly blog. Yes, I have the bad habit of being slightly freakish with cardboard but on more days than not, all that my kids do is color on printer paper with Crayola markers and play with plastic toys. Why do you think I don't post every day? Or that I talk more about procrastinating and swimming than actually accomplishing? 

We earned a whopping $5.50 today. Jenna, to her disappointment, didn't get to provide a plastic bag to a single customer (except our friend, who graciously accepted one) but she kept a tally in her notebook of what we'd sold. Emily, after a hesitant start, opened up and started talking to customers. Kate sat under our big umbrella and ate string cheese, apples and drank copious amounts of juice. We gave her an award for All Time Patience And Cheerful Participation While Fighting Dehydration.

The girls' favorite part of the Fair was probably the last 15 minutes, when we were allowed to barter with other vendors and trade wares. The girls ran off with sets of cards and swopped them for hairclips, bracelets, notebooks and toys. And they got to negotiate with people who came over to our table to trade with us. And then we packed up and went out for a late lunch of burgers and fries. Yum.

Emily said, "Can we do this again next year?"

Ummmm. We'll see. The kids learned a lot about Supply this year but absolutely nothing about Demand. Perhaps that will be next year's lesson: to develop an awesome product. Maybe we'll even break out the cardboard and raise the stakes a little - you think? None of the vendors made anything out of cardboard this year - can you believe it? None! For shame, people of the world (including lazy me)! Or make silkscreened superhero capes. Or clothespeg rubber band crossbows. Or wooden donuts. Or cardboard easels. No - wait, those are my ideas. I need to hand the helm over to my littles. They can do  - and have already done -amazing things. 

So that was our first Kids' Craft Fair experience. A good day - especially for the the Teacher in me, if not the Mother as well. Have you ever done one? What did you sell? What do you think we should we sell next year (if)?