Tutorial: Creating a pocket stay

The first ever pair of pants I made had a pocket stay and I’ve loved them ever since. They keep your pockets in place, you don’t have to adjust them every time you put the pants on or sit down. It stops any gaping so your pocket lining stay hidden (which is great if you want to use a bright colour pocket lining).

They are easy to add to any pants pattern – I’m working on a pair of Ginger Jeans at the moment so I’ll be showing it on them, but it works the same for any type of pockets in any type of pants or jeans.

You will need the front leg pattern piece, pocket lining (you may have 2 of these) and pocket facing.

Overlay the front pants leg with the pocket lining, lining up all of your notches.

This pocket lining is a single piece that is folded over – yours may be 2 pattern pieces or similar to this.

Overlay the pocket facing, lining up the notches and secure with a pin or sticky tape.

Line it up on your pants, matching the notches and secure with a pin or tape.

Overlay again with a piece of tracing paper (I use greaseproof paper from the supermarket because I’m budget like that!)

Trace the top of the pants and the fly and right around the bottom of the pocket stay, adding notches to help line everything up later. Make sure you add the grainline. This is now your pocket stay.

I’ve turned the pattern around so I can see the bottom of the pocket lining to trace.

I’ve decided to shape the bottom of the pocket to a more curved shape.

We need to make the lining now. You can use the pocket pattern piece that comes with your pants sometimes. Because our piece is a fold over one it needs to be shaped and trimmed to fit.

Because I changed the shape at the bottom of the pocket on the stay I’m just matching the lining to it now.

Make sure that the top edge is at least 2-3″ in width.

Now we should have 3 pattern pieces, the pocket facing, pocket stay and the pocket lining;

Here are our pocket pieces cut out and ready.

Firstly we want to finish the linings edges and then sew it to our pants, right sides together.

Trim, turn and press. This is when you’ll need to add topstitching or understitching. I’m topstitching this pair.

We want to now sew our denim facing to our pocket stay. Finish the edges of the facing and sew the coin pocket on if the pants have one.

Pin and sew. I like to do sew the facings with wrong sides together so when you look inside the pants you can see the print of the pocket bag.

Turn the pants so the lining is towards us. Overlay the pocket stay, matching up all of our edges and notches and pin the pocket stay to our lining only.

I’ve marked in red where I’ve pinned.

Sew the pocket stay, I like to do a double line of stitching for extra strength.

It will be easiest if you flip the pockets and sew around the lining instead of sewing on the outside of the pocket stay.

Finish the edges of the pocket stay and give it a good press.

You should now have the pocket bag with all the edges nicely finished.

Baste around the edges.

Go ahead and insert your zipper and fly facing and you should have a lovely looking pocket bag.