I owned a perfectly lovely white ‘puffy vest’, that I often reached for, but was never happy wearing. The reason for my dissatisfaction with this article of clothing was simple: the vest had a horrible pocket system.
While it had two outer pockets, they were shallow and essentially useless for actually holding anything: keys, cell phone, cash, etc.
I decided I would upcycle and improve the situation, by simply adding a new pocket to the inside of the vest.
Small improvement brings new life to my vest.
I’m not the world’s best sewer, but this was a simple enough project (and one that would actually only be really seen by me, since the pocket would be on the inside of the vest).
1.) I took a piece of colorful cloth (which was the good half of a kitchen towel – the other half had a hole and was now a cleaning rag). I cut the scrap cloth slightly larger than I wanted to pocket. The portion of the towel I was using still had two finished seams, which I left to save myself having to worry about those edges fraying.
Cut cloth to slightly larger than desired pocket size.
2.) I pinned the fabric to the inside of the left from panel of the vest. I angled it in a way that would make it easy for me to get items in and out of the pocket with my right hand. I rolled under the raw edges of the towel and pinned these.
Hand sew fabric to inner vest pocket, leaving top seam open.
3.) I hand sewed the 2 sides and the 1 bottom of the pocket, leaving the top seam open.
Perfection – I had a much more functional vest that I’ve worn many times. The pocket is useful, and a fun reminder of how easy it can be to improve or upcyce an item into something more useful.
And of course it makes for a good story….
New functional pocket added to lining of my vest.
