Pockets can easily be added to most of the garments you make, regardless of whether or not the original pattern has pockets, or you can add patch pockets to purses, tote bags, beach bags – whatever you’d like.

Many variations, kinds and sizes can be made, once you know the basics of how to make pockets.  Today,  we’ll cover one of the most basic of all – the Patch Pocket.

For a professional looking patch pocket all edges must be true and even.  The best way to accomplish this is to make a pattern for the pocket.  After cutting the pocket out, cut two or three small notches along the rounded corners of the pocket so the seam will lie flat (Figure 1).  Turn and press all edges of the pocket and baste if necessary (Figure 2).

In order to get  the right angles folded under on a pocket, you could make a cardboard pattern the “actual” pocket size (Figure 3).  Place the cardboard pocket pattern on top of the pocket piece and press the seam allowances over the cardboard edge.  You can leave the pocket plain or add a decorative trim to the top of the pocket by sewing  four or five rows of stitching (Figure 4), or by adding seam binding to the top edge after it is turned, but before attaching it to the garment or bag.

To attach the pocket to the garment you can stitch  close to the edge  or up to 1/4″ away from the outside edges, whichever you would prefer.

The second pocket we’ll cover is an easy and quick way to make a side pocket for skirts, dresses, pants or shorts.


Normally, those patterns that have side pockets will have you cut out the pocket separately and attach them to the sides of the garments.  An easier and quicker say to make the side pockets is to pin the pocket piece to the front and back pattern pieces and cut it all in one.  When you sew the side seams, you’ll simply sew up TO the pocket, sew around the pocket, and continue sewing the rest of the side seam.

Clip into the corners (diagram 2) so the pockets will easily turn to the inside of the garment.

Katrina Hollon had an epiphany when her second child, a daughter, was born. “My second child was born with peanut allergies which changed my idea of heading back off to work anytime soon,” said Hollon, 38, who was a teacher at the time. So instead of returning to the classroom, she started making children’s clothes in a home business that she calls Strawberry Farm. More on the name in a minute.

Hollon was born in Dunedin, Florida and says she has lived back and forth between the beaches “and my family’s old strawberry farm my whole life.” She currently is living in St. Petersburg, although she travels to the farm in Plant City a couple times a month. “I try to always be there when my aunt is making her famous strawberry jelly,” she said.

To find her online, go to www.sugarsandwich.etsy.com to see a selection of her delightful girls clothes. After her daughter’s first birthday in February, she listed a wide selection and had begun sewing at least a dress a day. 

Hollon says “my family has sewn for generations. I was always too impatient to thread a needle, but with the birth of my daughter (Tenzin), my mother bought me a sewing machine and I was determined to sew up a square blanket with these amazing fabrics I found online. After months of struggling with tiny little parts and things to figure out, it seemed to suddenly become easy.”

“Now I feel confident about the pieces I make and moreover, I genuinely enjoy the work. Its art to me, because I create my own patterns, I draw them out on paper and then make it. I usually get it right on the third try. So my own daughter has all the first and second tries.”

“I started making them just for my own daughter. Everything in the stores just seems so typically pink and frilly. My daughter is closer to a firecracker than a princess.”

She says she “started with pillowcase dresses, taken from the vintage ones my grandmother used to make from flour sacks. I also have blanket sets, peasant dresses, reversible pinafores, pajamas, little matching Scrappy Dolls, and a mod looking, 60′s inspired dress. I usually stock smaller sizes but will make any size by request, the pillowcase dresses are $25 each and the others vary.”

To read the full interview with Katrina Hollon, visit the St. Petersburg Times.

When one door closes, as the old optimistic saying goes, another one opens. At least, so one hopes.

But sometimes it just doesn’t happen that way. And if another door doesn’t appear on the horizon, you might have to take a page from Christine Marchuska’s notepad and build one yourself.

When the economy took a serious downturn last winter, Marchuska, 28, became one more Wall Street casualty. Back in February, the rumors started rolling at Morgan Stanley, the investment banking firm where she was employed in New York City. By May, the rumors were becoming reality.

“They treated us like cattle,” Marchuska said. “You’d get a call and go into a conference room, and then they would escort you from the building.” She has one word to sum up what happened: “bloody.”

Start-up from a letdown

Losing a cushy job in the finance sector was a blow not just to Marchuska’s ego but to her pocketbook, too. With an Upper East Side apartment and a lifestyle to match, Marchuska needed to get back to work. “Just about nobody sees a recovery for about two years — it’s bad out there,” she says of the job scenario for someone like herself, a Cornell graduate with a corporate background.

The Endicott native, who comes from a family of entrepreneurs, owners of apartment houses and an automobile dealership, chose to view her predicament as an opportunity.

“I decided to build a business, with my brother Justin as a partner, from scratch,” she said.

Small biz trend

Marchuska is not alone. There are quite a few brave souls who are taking the plunge and starting a business after getting pink-slipped. Three out of four adults said they have considered starting a business, according to the Yahoo Small Business poll in April. But in an economy racked with fears of a recession, entrepreneurs need to be cautious with launching new ventures, said Howard Van Auken, a management professor at Iowa State University.

His advice: Develop a financial plan for the business that includes a cash budget, and don’t invest excessively.

That is what the siblings have done, starting an online T-shirt company with $5,000 in seed money. “Eventually, we will look for some venture capital,” Christine Marchuska said.

Marchuska’s first order of business was educating herself about the fashion world. She took a course in Manhattan, taught by a woman with 30 years in the garment industry. “It was called ‘Stitch and B—h, and we learned basic sewing. I felt, if I was going to run a clothing business, I needed to know how clothes are made.”

Keep it local

Next, she set about developing the business plan, and when she did, Marchuska looked homeward, to the Southern Tier.

“My brother and I have a lot of hometown pride, since we grew up here” she said. So the models they used, the Web designer, the product designer and the advertisement team were all local.

“Our tag will say ‘designed in Upstate New York.’”

Green dream

The siblings also wanted a business that was politically correct. They created shirts that had “green” or organically produced fibers; they created ads and packaging that came from recycled materials. And, most important, they say they “were not comfortable with the company structure until we could find a way to give back to different charities and organizations we support,” Marchuska said.

They decided that 5 percent of all revenues would be donated to Safe Horizon, an organization that works to aid victims of violence; Streetwise Partners, a non-profit that links low-income individuals to volunteer professionals to help build workplace skills; and the Red Cross Society of China, where the shirts will be manufactured.

This summer the fitted silhouette tees, in black and white (more colors to come) with trendy epaulettes went on sale on the Web site, www.marchuska.com, for $39. A business was born: Marchuska, LLC.

The siblings, who started with an inventory of 2,000 shirts, also plan to sell their product at street fairs in New York City and at their 326 Airport Road, Endicott, office.

What’s next?

“I am still going on finance interviews, just to keep my contacts,” Marchuska said, “but I wanted to get this Internet-based business rolling now. This is my dream.”

It is a green dream, she says. It is a local dream, about employing local talent and keeping as many jobs as she and her brother, who runs a construction business with their other brother, can create in the community. Eventually, they want to move the actual manufacturing and sewing aspect of their business, stateside, too, to Greater Binghamton.

Being downsized, it turns out, doesn’t have to mean the end of something, said Marchuska, “It is a beginning, just a beginning, of something new. We had our launch party in the Hamptons! It is so exciting.” 

Read more about this story at Binghamtom Press Connects.