Add A Pocket To Sweatpants

If I ever get around to updating the categories on this blog, this one is going under “Real World Sewing” because my project to add a pocket to sweatpants isn’t really pretty, but man is it practical.

I have a pair of well worn and well loved sweatpants. What I love about them is they fit, which is a miracle for a short person. They have one major flaw – they don’t have pockets. 

I do need to  stop here and point out my utter disbelief that people are still wearing tights or yoga pants out in public all the time. There have been a lot of fashion fads that I have not understood, but what really surprises me is how long this one has carried on. And the funny part (to me) is how all these women think they are special for wearing this look, when in reality it’s become commonplace. Sometimes I wonder if I’m going to be ejected from Trader Joe’s for being the only woman not wearing form fitting leg wear as pants.

I actually wear these sweatpants for their two intended purposes – exercising and lounging around the house. Where I desperately need a pocket is on our morning walks – to hold my phone. 

As it turns out, adding a pocket really wasn’t that difficult. 

I routinely cut off pockets from jeans and keep them in my sewing basket for crafts, and I used one of my pockets as a pattern. While looking through my stash I realized that one of Mr. SuzerSpace’s pockets was just a little bigger, which meant I could use it to trace out my seam allowance. 

I used a disappearing marker to trace both onto a leftover scrap of an old sweatshirt. It didn’t bother me that it wasn’t a color match to my pants. In fact, I kind of like the contrast. 

After I cut it out, I folded, ironed and sewed the top to create a hem.

With a ton of pins, I folded, ironed and then hemmed the three sides. I’ve seen tutorials that suggest you can do this while the pocket is on the pants, but that seemed like a handful, and I need all the help I can get when I sew, so I set this all up before I did the hard part of getting it actually sewn onto the pant back.

I trimmed off the excess seam allowance. So far, so good – it looks like a pocket!

To figure out the correct placement for the pocket, I put the sweatpants on and looked in the mirror, and then stuck a piece of tape where I wanted the top of the pocket to line up. Actually, that’s not really true. I used the sticky part of a label that was sealing the top of a liquor bottle top to mark the placement 🙂 .

After pinning the pocket at that tape placement, I sewed the pocket on to the pants.

I wanted it really secure since it’s going to hold my phone, so I backstitched anywhere I could to lock in the corners.  That means it isn’t super pretty. But this is Real World sewing, remember?

A quick test of the phone in the pocket and I was good to go. I actually tested this with the pants on, but I feel it’s best for everyone if I don’t post a butt selfie 😉 .

Pin this so you have it when you are ready to add your own pocket to a pair of sweatpants.

This post will be linked up at some of these great parties, and I have a Sewing board on Pinterest you should follow if you like projects like these.