I have a lot of sewing books. Which means I have access to a lot of different methods for doing the same thing. As they say, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Especially in garment construction. Welt pockets are no exception. But the only method I've found that does NOT require making separate welts/lips and then carefully securing them into place before, during, and/or after you create the opening is this wonderfully easy method found in a number of Palmer/Pletsch publications, including Pants for Real People, Jackets for Real People, and Easy, Easier, Easiest Tailoring. Frankly, I don't know why everyone who sews isn't doing their welts this way instead of avoiding them.

Now to be clear, I did not invent this method. I'm just providing some show and tell with my own photos and words, plus a few personal hints that helped me as I was making my pockets. I recommend that you buy one (or morel!) of the above books, not only for this and other types of welt pocketing instructions, but for all of the other great fitting and/or construction information.

 

This is a double welt pocket I recently finished. I was taking photos as I went along, but using matching thread, etc. for the real deal makes it hard to demonstrate to you exactly what's going on. So instead, I made up a sample in mismatched fabrics and used contrasting threads. That's what I'll show below.

 

 

1. To start, you need your fashion fabric (the aqua below—pretend it's an entire pair of pants or a jacket, OK?), fabric for the pocket bag (the unbleached muslin on the right), and non-woven interfacing (in the middle, if you squint). Also shown are the two blue strips of fabric which will become the welts and the pocket facing.

If you are using your fashion fabric for your pocket bag and welts, you don't necessarily *have* to use those strips and you could just pretend they aren't attached to the pocket bag as you follow along. But I recommend making a sample exactly as shown here so you'll learn what's going on and what you can safely eliminate later.

The exact measurements for these pieces are:

pocket bag: 7" x 15"
blue strips: 7" x 3" each
interfacing: 7" x 3"

The general measurements are:

pocket bag should be 2-4" wider than pocket opening and a little more than twice as long as desired pocket depth.

welt & facing strips: same width as pocket bag and about 2" wider than pocket opening.

interfacing: same as strips.

Belinda also gave me a good tip to use a lightweight fusible and to fuse it directly to the garment wrong side. I've included a note below for when that should happen.

 

2. On the interfacing piece, draw a box the desired finished size of your pocket opening. Mine is 4" x 1/2". (It doesn't matter what you use to draw this box as it won't show on the finished garment.)

3. Place the welt and facing strips onto the pocket bag, with the strips wrong side to pocket bag right side. In the photo below, the welt strip is shown at the top. It's the fabric piece which will become the lips of the pocket. Place it evenly with the top of the pocket back and secure the bottom edge of welt strip to the pocket bag with medium zigzag stitching (shown in red here).

The pocket facing is the bottom blue strip. This is what will show behind the pocket opening. Place this strip about 2" from the bottom of the pocket bag and zigzag the top edge of this strip onto the pocket bag piece.

4. Pin the interfacing onto the wrong side of the fashion fabric/garment. Position it so that the template box is located exactly where you want the actual pocket opening and is facing up. (If you used fusible, now's the time to fuse it in place.)

Stitch around the box, using small stitches and also starting/stopping in the middle of one long edge. In other words, don't start/stop in a corner — this makes for a better corner when you get to the clipping & turning stage. I turn my stitch length to 0 to start and end so I don't have to backstitch. Less bulk and less opportunity to go out of line. I used red thread for this demonstration. You should use thread that matches your garment.

5. Center the welt strip section of the pocket bag over the stitching you did in Step 4, right sides together. Pin into place from underneath since you will be turning this "bundle" over to the other side to sew.

6. Now's the time to flip over what you did in Step 5 and sew. Sew directly and *exactly* on top of the stitching you already have in place, but only stitch the two long sides of the box this time. Where you should stitch for this step is shown in yellow.

7. Still on the interfacing side, machine baste through all layers exactly 1/4" away from each long side of the box. Baste from edge to edge on the interfacing, as show in red below. (If your pocket opening is wider than the 1/2" being demonstrated here, your basting should be exactly 1/2 the box's width away from the box.) It is very important that your basting be straight and that the distance between basting and box is 1/2 the box width. This section will become the welts.

8. Flip the stack back over so the garment (aqua) right side is up. Fold pocket bag up firmly against the lower basting stitches and then pin in place.

9. Flip the stack over again and stitch along the lower long edge of the box, shown in yellow. Backstitch, or stitch at 0 length, at the start and stop (corners).

View from the right side, after stitching from Step 9.

10. Flip the stack back over so the garment right side is up. Fold the upper edge of the pocket/welt strip down firmly against the top basting seam. Pin in place.

11. Flip the stack over and stitch on the upper edge of the box, as shown in yellow below. Backstitch, or stitch at 0 length, at the start and stop (corners).

12. Remove basting stitches and then flip back over to the garment right side and slash through the welt/pocket only. Do not slash through garment layer.

Slashing complete.

13. Slash through interfacing and garment layers at the exact center of the box and diagonally to the corners. Drawing a slash guideline as below is very helpful. Be sure to clip all the way to, but not through, the stitching at the corners.

Slashing, clipping complete.

14. Turn pocket bag to inside of garment through the opening you just made in Step 13.

Your pocket should look like this. If the corners are puckered or the welts overlap and you are sure of your measurements and stitching, you probably did not clip all the way to the corners. Turn the pocket bag back to the garment outside and check those corners.

14. Fold garment and interfacing back to expose the little triangles of fabric/interfacing left from slashing the corners, shown inside the yellow circle below.

15. As shown in red below, stitch across the triangle onto the pocket bag in 2-3 passes using a short stitch length. Zigzag the upper and lower sections of the welt strip closed, on the pocket bag only.

16. Hand or machine baste the welts closed and press. (I do these two steps now, instead of earlier per P/P.)

17. With pocket bag flat behind garment, edgestitch around pocket opening. P/P instructs to edgestitch only below the lower welt, but I like the way the full edgestitching looks and I think it secures the whole pocket opening better. But there's no sewing police — do it how you prefer!

18. Flip stack over (again!) and fold pocket bag so pocket facing strip is centered behind pocket opening.

19. Sew/overlock pocket bag edges.