Reversible Vest and Flap Pocket Tutorial



 

This post originally appeared on The Sewing Rabbit and today I'm bringing it home.

Fall is my favorite season by far and I was so excited to create a fall outfit for one of my boys. I had a hard time narrowing down exactly what I wanted to do...a quilted vest...or a vest with leather trim. So what did I do? Combine them and make a reversible vest with two different looks.

When designing this vest I wanted to add lots of fun details like the different welt pockets, the quilting (my first time ever attempting quilting!), and a flap pocket. The flap pocket turned out to be a bit tricky because I couldn't find any tutorials out there on adding a flap pocket by itself. All the tutorials I found out there were about adding a flap pocket to a welt pocket, or inside a seam. But I wanted to add a flap on its own. And now you can make a flap pocket too using the instructions below.

 

First you need to figure out what size you want your finished pocket flap to be. Sketch out a pocket on a plain piece of paper and then cut it out and place it on your fabric to be sure it looks the way you want it to. (I did all of this before quilting the jacket, it made it much easier to line things up correctly.)

 

Then I traced the pocket piece on my plain paper and added the seam allowances all the way around. At the top of the pocket I built in some extra room by leaving about twice the seam allowance at the top. 

Using the new pattern piece, cut out two pieces of fabric for your pocket flap. I wanted to add a jeans button so I fused interfacing to one of my fabric pieces to give it extra strength. Then place the pocket pieces right sides together and sew around three sides, leaving the top open. Trim the seam allowance, clip corners, turn right side out and press. Then pin the pocket flap in place about 1/4 inch lower than you want the final pocket flap to sit.

Sew right along the top edge of the pocket flap. Then flip the flap up (so you see the underside of it) and sew close to the edge again, making sure you are sewing past the first sewing line so you won't see the first stitching line.

You are done!

I went ahead and added a small welt pocket underneath the flap but you wouldn't have to. I thought it would be fun to have a 'top secret' place to hide a pen or pencil so it's a narrow, but deep, pocket. If you make a pocket flap I'd love to see it! And if you'd like to learn more about how I quilted this vest visit this post and get the tutorial for quilting any vest pattern.

Happy Sewing!