How to Draft Your Own In-Seam Pocket for Skirts and Dresses

Have you ever found a fabulous skirt or dress pattern, sewn it all up and realized afterward . . . “Hey wait! There are no pockets!” Can someone please tell me why on earth patterns are still being drafted without pockets? We’re sewing our own clothes! Let’s have pockets in all the dresses and skirts please!! Today I will show you how to draft a pocket yourself so this never happens again.

The dress above is one of my very favorites I made last season. I could throw it on in a flash and look cute, but meanwhile feel like I was dressed in a nightgown. What made it even better though? Those deep pockets I added. I figured you, my lovely BERNINA sewists, might want to know the “quick and dirty” way to draft an in-seam pocket for any dress or skirt (or loose elastic waisted pant I suppose), so here you go.

Materials Needed

• Your Hand
• A Marker/pencil/chalk
• 4 scraps of fabric bigger than your hand!
• Your sewing machine. I sew on  a BERNINA 590.
• BERNINA Reversible Foot 1C or 1D

Let’s get started!

Step 1

Place your hand on the fabric (or paper if you want to make a pattern piece). Trace a shape around it that looks similar to the image below. Imagine your hand going into the pocket and how much room you want for your hand! One side needs to be straight, to match up with the side seam of the skirt/dress. From there the line will go out diagonally and get rounder at the base of the pocket (you don’t need lots of round space at the top of the pocket because nothing sits up there!). You can make this as big as you’d like!

Step 2

Cut out two mirrored pairs (4 pieces total), so you have a pocket for each side.

Step 3

Clip/pin the pockets to each side (left and right) of the front and back pieces of your skirt/dress (RST). Make sure you measure and pin them the same distance from the top/waist line on all 4 pocket pieces! I usually like to hold the skirt/dress front up to my body and see where I’d want to have my hands. I pin one pocket, measure that distance and pin all the rest the same. Make sure you pin your pockets in the right direction!

Step 4

Sew each pocket (RST) at about 1/4” seam. Press Open.

Step 5

Understitch the pocket to the seam allowance so that it folds in nicely. Then I like to press it again, only this time WST so that it makes a nice crisp pocket opening when all sewn together.

Step 6

Once you have sewn them all to the side seams, pin the front skirt and pocket piece (now attached) to the back skirt and pocket piece. Pin down the side seam, going around the pocket shape so that there is still an opening for your hand! (DON’T go straight down!). I used a 3/8” seam allowance.

Clip the corners, and serge/finish the seams. AND THAT’S IT!  Now you can have those coveted pockets in anything you make! WOOHOO!

Now go show off by sticking your hands in those pockets and storing your phone, wallet, and keys in there so you don’t need your purse! HA!