Knit Patch Pocket Tutorial

Learning to sew with knits has little bit of a curve. It's uphill at first, but once you get the hang of it, they are much less stressful to sew than wovens. I truly, truly believe this.

One of the first knit garments I sewed was the Farbenmix Olivia hooded underdress. I sewed my daughter several of these on my sewing machine (that was light years before my serger and cover stitch machines) and they came out wearable, but I remember how much my heart would palpitate when I would get to the dunh dunh dunh...POCKET. Ugh. Despite my pressing and hoping, I would get this stretched out ripply pocket, every time.

My daughter still wore those dresses and loved them, of course.

But I eventually figured out a way to make my pockets much less stressful and get good results.

Last night I was making a hoodie tunic (not the Olivia) for my daughter and decided to take a few pictures of the process. I'm sure this is not the only way to do a knit pocket, but it is the way I do it, soo.... I hope this helps someone!

1. Cut a 3/8" wide strip of fusible interfacing, preferably woven. You don't want your strip to stretch at all, unless your pocket has rounded edges.

If your pocket has rounded edges, cut this strip on the diagonal (as if you are cutting a square into two triangles). Since the diagonal (bias) stretches a little, your strip will then have enough give for the next step.

2. Finish any opening edges of your pocket. The top of my patch pocket will go into the bodice seam, so I've left it raw. I finished the top sides with ribbing. That's where my daughter's hands will go into the pocket when we're all done.

3. Lay your 3/8" strips of interfacing down on the WRONG sides of your pocket, along the edges that you need to fold up. You want them 1/4" to 3/8" from the edge, or whatever your seam allowance is for the pocket. Fuse in place with a hot, steamy iron.

4. Fold up the bottom & side edges over the interfacing. My knit fabric here, a cotton interlock, is very spongey and didn't want to cooperate. You can see that it's not happy about being folded up and pressed. Sort of like a surly teenager or a cranky toddler. That's okay, I will WILL it in place. The fabric cannot win against me, muah hah hah hah....

5. Turn the pocket over. Press some more. Mine is not perfect, as you can see, but I'm not going to cry a river. This is a knit play outfit after all. The whole idea is that it is forgiving and casual.

6. Place the pocket where you want it on the front of your garment or wherever. Pin it down like crazy and "finger smoosh" (technical term) those folded edges down into the bottom fabric. You could even press a little more, being careful not to press your pins. Let the pocket know who's boss!

7. Here's where tools are going to come in super handy. I like to use my left-edge top stitching foot to attach my pockets. I have a Viking, so this is what mine looks like. All that metal is going to slide nicely over the knit pocket.

8. Here's the underside. See those grooves? They will slide along the edge of the pocket, keeping me on track and preventing the top layer of my pocket from bubbling up in front of the foot. It will kind of like, ice skate over the surface.

9. The little red mark is what tells me where the edge of the groove on the underside is. I line up the red mark with the edge of my pocket.

10. Lengthen your stitch. I like 3.5mm for my knit top stitching. Your stitch won't actually be that long, as all the knit and bulk will most likely feed rather slowly under your needle.

11. If you can, lower your presser foot pressure. Not all machines have this, but if you do, take advantage of it. It's super helpful for knits. My rules of thumb are...is it stretchy? Is it bulky? Then lower away. My usual pressure is a 4; here I've lowered it to a 2.

11. Starting, oh, 1/2" in from the edge of your pocket, stitch a few stitches forward. Then backstitch to the beginning of the pocket. Go forward again. This should a) strengthen the edge of the pocket, and b) help prevent a bunch of puckery, angry stitches that sometimes happen when you start sewing on knit fabric.

NOTE: Make sure you are using a ballpoint needle OR, if your fabric has lycra in it, a stretch ballpoint needle! Don't use a universal needle, your stitches will totally suck. Ask me how I know.

12. When you get the end of the pocket, back stitch again to strengthen that side.

13. PRESS with lots of steam! I cannot stress how important this is for knit sewing. After every seam, steam & press.

14. Be so stoked at your awesome knit pocket-ness! Don't let the fabric win! You CAN tame it!

:)