Pocket Week - Scissors Pocket Storage

Today’s Pocket Week Sponsor is Plumebella. She has a wonderful Etsy shop chock-full of natural beauty products – lotions, soaps, skinwash, and lip balm.

She even sells her lipbalm in cute little containers, small enough to fit in the 5th Pocket of a pair of jeans! Great for us busy gals on the go! And, it keeps you from having that funky “chapstick bulge” in your pocket. Go check out her Etsy shop for all kinds of great items… you can also find her at her Facebook Page!

I’m giving away some of her 5th pocket balm tonight to one lucky follower… and then again tomorrow to someone who has linked to the Linky Party!

Didn’t Candace show us some wonderful Creative “Pockets” of space!? I wish mine looked like some of those! If you take a peek into my craft room, you’ll see that I subscribe to the “a creative mess is better than tidy idleness” theory… bigtime.

I don’t mind a little bit of clutter, but I do mind when it interferes with me being able to find what I need. Like my favorite scissors. Or my rotary cutter. That’s where these handy storage pockets come in!

Start by cutting your pieces. One large piece (13×22″ – folded to 13×11″) and three smaller ones (two 10×13″ in contrasting fabrics for the pockets, one 8×13″ for the loop at the top). Fold the pocket pieces and loop piece in half (right sides together), stitch the bottoms of the pocket pieces, and the sides of the loop piece.

Turn all the pieces right side out. Pin on the top pocket, 3″ from the bottom of the fold (your fabric should be unfolded, but you should see where the fold is, or you can mark it with a pen). Stitch the pocket down across the bottom, about 1/8″ from the edge.

Pin on the bottom pocket, right against the fold. Stitch down across the bottom.

Pin on the loop piece.

Fold the bottom of the main fabric up, enclosing the pocket pieces an loop piece inside. Pin around all sides. Stitch, (1/4″ seam allowance) leaving a hole for turning. When you stitch the top of the sides, make sure you’re stitching next to the loop piece, and not enclosing it in your seam (that would be bad).

Turn the whole thing right side out, poke your corners with a chopstick to make sure they look nice, and press the whole thing flat. Stitch all the way around, with a 1/8″ seam (which will also stitch your hole closed). Don’t stitch the loop at the top, though… stitch just below it.

Measure the spaces for your pockets, and mark with a quilt pen or chalk pencil (or both). My pockets are each 3″ wide – the ones on the ends are a tiny bit larger.

Sew down these lines. When you sew, start at the bottom of the bottom pocket and sew all the way up to the top of the top pocket. Make sure to anchor your stitches at either end.

Insert a dowel in the top, tie each end with a bit of ribbon (you may want to add some glue to your knots to make sure they hold), and you’re all done!

This is the last day of pocket week…it went by so fast! Come back tomorrow to check out all our big winners! If you’d like to be one of those winners, make sure that you’re a follower of this blog and/or you’ve uploaded your pocket project(s) to the Pocket Week Linky!

Expect Moore… soon!