Thursday, November 11, 2021

Prose & Poetry skirt pocket hack by Janelle Whitehead

 Prose and Poetry mini skirt 2 ways




Hi.  My name is Janelle and I’ve been sewing along with Project Run and Play for years.  I’m thrilled to be here to show you how I hacked the Prose and Poetry skirt to make a mini skirt in 2 different ways.  But I apologise in advance for my photos.  I sew in a dark garage, often early in the morning or at night, so the lighting isn’t great.




Option 1 - Front slash pocket, secret pocket and cargo pocket, sewn here in a dusty pink cotton linen blend.


I cut 3 inches from both the front and back pattern pieces.  I came up with this amount by lining up the front slash pocket piece on the front pattern piece, then placing the cargo pocket directly underneath it, then allowing for the 1 ¼” hem.  My original plan was to hem the skirt, then sew the cargo pocket on.  But that’s not what I ended up doing.


What I should have done next was trim the hem allowance square on both the front and back pieces at the side seam, by 1 ¼”.



I followed steps 1-6 of the pattern to sew up the front slash pockets.  As you can see, the grey overlocking thread is showing.  In the very first step of the pattern I probably shouldn’t have overlocked, especially using grey thread.  I also must have folded over more than ¼” twice on the short side of the pocket.  But I came up with a pretty great solution.



I followed steps 7-14 of the pattern to make the cargo pockets.  I didn’t add a button as my daughter would like snaps.  I have ordered some, which will arrive eventually.  I also skipped the back pockets, as requested by my daughter.


I then followed steps 16-19 of the pattern.



When it came to step 20, I wanted to place my cargo pockets so they were overlapping the front slash pockets slightly, and covering my grey overlocking thread.



I placed the cargo pocket flap so it was just covering the grey thread I was wanting to hide.  Then I placed the cargo pocket in position underneath.



I followed step 20 and topstitched the cargo pocket in place, ignoring the suggested markings on the pattern.



I followed step 21 and topstitched the cargo pocket flaps in place.



Then I followed the rest of the steps in the pattern to finish sewing up my skirt.  I stuffed up again here and didn’t catch the hem properly as I was sewing it.  So I folded the whole hem up again and sewed another hem, making the skirt shorter, and showing that I had placed my cargo pockets unevenly on each side.  Oh well.  I like the shorter hem than I had planned and my daughter doesn’t mind the unevenness.  I liked it so much I made another one!



Option 2 - Long front slash pockets, sewn here in a mint cotton drill.


When I was googling for inspiration for the above skirt, and working out which pockets to do, I kept coming across skirts similar to this second one.  So I made one like this too!  I sewed both the pockets at once and I seem to have swapped around which one I took a photo of, so I’m sorry if it’s a tad confusing.



I cut 3 inches from the bottom of the pattern, because that’s what I did last time, and I thought this style of skirt would look good with a deep hem.  I cut out the front and back pieces.  (As before, I should have squared off the hem allowance, but again, I forgot to do this.)  Then I folded the front piece over and cut out 2 mirror image pieces like that, which would become my new front slash pocket pieces.  I only cut 2 mirror image pocket pieces, not 4 as in the pattern.



I placed the front pocket pieces over these pieces to cut the hip pocket slash.



I folded the edge on the angle over twice to the wrong side and topstitched.  Then I placed my new pocket piece over the front piece and marked at the top and bottom where the pocket piece came to on the right side of the front pocket piece. 



I drew a chalk line ¾” (twice the 3/8” seam allowance) closer to the side seam than those marks.  Please ignore the 2 lines in the picture.  It was either early in the morning or late at night and the first line was in the wrong place.



I flipped the front pocket piece over and lined up the edge with that chalk line, so my front piece and front pocket piece are right sides together.  I used wash away wonder tape to hold it in place.



I sewed them together ⅜” front the edge of the front pocket piece.  (The photo shows the opposite side, sorry)



I flipped the front pocket piece over,



Pressed (switched back to the other side for the photo, sorry)



And topstitched.



I basted the pocket piece to the front along the bottom and side edges.  



Then I ignored the cargo pocket instructions and the back pocket piece instructions and sewed up the rest of the skirt.  I used a deep 2 ½” hem, to make it a similar length to the previous skirt, which my daughter and I both liked the length of.



So that is how I hacked the prose and poetry pattern to make these cute mini skirts.  Hopefully it makes enough sense.  Thanks for having me post on the Project Run and Play blog.


The Prose & Poetry Joggers is on sale for the month of November. Sign up for our newsletter to get the discount code to save $3 off the pattern. Pop over to our PR&P Fans group to join the Prose and Poetry sew a long this month. We would love to see what you'd make with this pattern!


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