Friday, July 20, 2012

Day Trousers: Part 5 (pockets)

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of photos of the pocket-making process. I have to say I was working on this through the heat wave last week, and what with having a fan pointed at me going full blast - and then having to keep moving the thread that was blowing around in the breeze - I didn't stop to take a lot of pictures as I went along.

Let's start  first with a photo from last the last post. You'll see the two unfinished flaps of wool poking out - those are the pocket facings. They're here so that from the outside you don't see any of the pocketing fabric, which in this case I'm making out of the same cotton that I used to interline the trousers.

Here is the pocket, all finished. I know, I know, I didn't get any in-progress shots. Basically I took a large square of fabric, folded it in half, and then placed it on top of the trousers where I wanted the pocket to be. I then trimmed off the bit hanging over the waistband, and the bit hanging over the side seam. I stitched the side edge of the pocket to the side stay, then felled the pocket facings onto the pocket, from the inside. That was a little tricky for the top part, as you may be able to tell from the photo below. It wasn't perfect, but you'll never see. I felled the tops to the top of the waist stay, and tacked the corners so they don't pull free. Finally I trimmed the bottom of the pocket into a curve, backstitched along the seam, and hand-serged the raw edges. 

Here's a shot from the outside. Notice the pick stitching along the front of the pocket opening. This secures the pocket facing from flapping backwards and pulling out of the pocket.

A closeup of one of the bar tacks. These are placed at the top and bottom of each pocket opening, and are used to keep the seams from being pulled open as your hands go in and out of the pocket.

All right - almost finished with the trousers! Now I just need to affix buttons for the braces, and line them, and they're done!

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