Author: Kerry

or how I learned to put in-seam pockets into an existing garment.

Can you carry a water bottle, phone, sunglasses, keys, a bag of trash, and a small notebook in one hand like some kind of walking clown car?

If you buy pants in the women’s section, then yeah, probably…because you haven’t been spoiled by a lifetime of cargo pants and reasonably sized jeans pockets. It’s called adaptation, and when you can perform that circus trick every morning on the way to your car, you are the weirdly fast three-legged dog of getting it done despite the laws of physics. And it’s a very old problem.

Traditionally, women did not have sewn-in pockets in their clothes.  If a woman had pockets, they were separate pieces, tied around the waist under skirts and were a strange combination of saddlebags and underwear.  They were intimate garments and a vehicle for privacy and ownership in a time when women were guaranteed neither.

Sewn-in pockets for ladies didn’t become a regular feature of women’s clothing until the 1920s when women got the vote.  This is not a coincidence.  It was now more socially acceptable for women to have stuff to do and the convenience of pockets (and rising hems) to help them do it.  Of course, women (especially working class women) always had stuff to do, but it was becoming more conventional and even desirable for this to be the case.  Historically, if a woman carried a large bag or needed to carry a lot of things with her, it was considered a mark of low class, that she had to work, to be of use.

So, as a lady who occasionally needs to be of use, I like some pockets.  They’re still not as common in women’s clothing, and often not of a useful size, but that’s changing.  

I’d like to wear more dresses, but I find that I avoid them in favor of my old stand-by jeans because I want to carry my keys and phone without a cumbersome purse.  

There’s no reason why we should have to choose between practicality and presentation in our daily lives, so that’s why I decided to learn how to make my own pockets.

The easiest kind of pocket to put in an already existing garment is the in-seam pocket.  You take a seam-ripper to the sides of the dress, open them up where you want the pockets to go, attach your pocket pattern pieces, and close them up in one continuous line of sewing from the seam above the pocket to the seam below the pocket. I used the tutorial from Craftsy and the free pattern from By Hand London.  The navy fabric was easy enough to match to this ⅛ yard of quilting fabric from Joann’s.

I always choose picture tutorials first and use videos as a second resource when needed because I don’t like to wait (as evidenced by those unpressed pocket pieces up there).  This tutorial was all I needed, but I definitely sewed the first pocket on while the dress was inside out and had to remove it and start over. That it should be right side out probably seems obvious to most, but I would’ve benefitted from the instructions making note of that or maybe a picture taken further back so I could better see how the pocket piece was oriented in relation to the dress as a whole.  I also wish that I had positioned the top of the pockets a little higher, on my natural waist.  I have a short torso, so my waist is higher than most. I feel like the lines of the dress would be better when my hands are in my pockets if I had.

In a nod to our foremothers whose only means of keeping a private letter or a valuable possession to themselves was to hide it in their dang underwear, I made my first attempt at freehand embroidery with the help of a washable marker before sewing the outer edges of the pockets shut. It’s a nice reminder, and I like the idea of a little self-made token that is only for me.  Of course, this is all negated by the fact that I, like a child, will turn this pocket out and show what I made to anyone who will let me.

I love this dress.  As with all the best things, it is beautiful as well as utilitarian.  I truly appreciate that I can live that muumuu life while still feeling like a lady.  A lady with flip flops and a top knot is a thing, right?

More about the history of pockets:

An interesting overview with some beautiful examples and historical context.

The History of Pockets by Barbara Burman and Ariane Fennetaux

An interview with Ariane Fennetaux on the Dressed podcast

Instructions on how to make your own tie-on pockets ready for the garden

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been a precarious mountain drive from any grocery store, restaurant, or any other place of business or recreation.  Not that the accessibility of such places is relevant to most of us now.  Packages come once a week, bears will drink your hummingbird feeder like a glass of iced tea, and the closest neighbor, a cranky gentleman named Bob, feels very strongly about personal land ownership and making sure that you do, too.

It’s also a dark sky community, which means that once the last light goes off over at Bob’s house, there’s nothing but the moon and stars.  No sickly, purple glow from the recently built Valero two miles down the road.  No blast of party-pop country music from over the fence.  I’ve become attuned to the social lives of the birds.  (Rufus is such a bully.) The windows are perpetually open, and the breeze comes to you free of the sounds of the road.  I’ve been reading with a focus I haven’t experienced since I was a teenager.

When I’m at home, I never really enjoy downtime.  Watching several episodes of The Great British Baking Show is like a sedative taken through the eyes and ears.  It’s not enough to completely drown out the worrying buzz of unfinished tasks, and after, it’s the hangover of regret and wasted time.  You know you can’t party like that anymore at your age!  What were you thinking?  Just look at that pile of unopened mail.

Here, my mail is a couple of western-sized states away, so I might as well enjoy myself, right?  And I have been.  I’ve been sleeping well, not focusing on all the things I haven’t done.  There must be a difference in quality when it comes to escapism, because that’s exactly what this is.  The trick must be to choose activities that make you feel stronger afterward.  Not all kinds of escapism are bio-available.  Like those potato chips made from the crazy, lab-created oil with no nutritional value that uh…went right through a person.

I suspect that all of my beautiful planning falls into this latter category.  Because I love to plan.  My house, car, and pockets are full of lists.  I enjoy thinking about what I want to do so much that I don’t know when to stop.  I build the vision until it becomes a mountain and the first step a pointless effort, thus adding to the pile of guilt-inducing, neglected obligations.  These unrealized plans are no more fulfilling than an hour eating jelly beans and pinning sewing patterns on Pinterest that I’ll never get around to using…which is a completely hypothetical, made up scenario with which I have no experience.

This is the rare gift of being plucked from your life and seeing it from a distance.  For days and days, even.  This will likely never again happen in my lifetime.  I can feel myself wading into some nasty Eat Pray Love territory here.  “Oh my gosh, Lindsey.  What you really need to do is to go stay in a private residence in a secluded, fairy-tale, mountain valley for a couple of weeks.  Take the initiative to find yourself, girl!” 

Getting to step back like this is a privilege, especially now when we’re all contending with varying degrees of anxiety and hardship unlike we’ve ever seen.  I want to use this opportunity to sift through years’ worth of detritus stuffed into the corners of my mind and separate what I will keep and follow through with from the things I’ll let go.  (Is that a fiddle over there behind that Russian textbook?  Good Lord.)  Homemade clothing and vegan recipes cannot change a life, but making decisions and following through can. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?

[waves awkwardly, fumbles watermelon]