Pockets!!

I've been working night shift for a few months, and my wardrobe at work consists of hospital-issue ciel blue scrubs (shirt with one chest pocket, pants with one back pocket) and a navy blue jacket (two front pockets).  Last month I switched to days and evenings, which is a bit of a busier routine.  Pair that with the lack of so-tired-should-be-asleep-this-time-of-night chill that accompanies night shift and I'm way too hot at work for the jacket.  Well, that decreases my pocket capacity by about half.  Where the heck am I supposed to put all this essential stuff?!

As I was mindlessly sewing another project I'm working on (I have to sew 124 cones together out of sail cloth--don't ask--it's amazingly tedious) my brain had the chance to wander, and it really took off.  Finally I had to stop mid cone and go eyeball exactly what I had in my sewing box to see if my thought might come to fruition.  What did I find?  A scrap of navy blue Sunbrella.  About a third of a gorgeous cream-colored hide of lambskin.  A roll of 1 1/2" webbing.  Velcro.  Hmmm...

So I laid out a pile of pens and some other junk, trying to replicate what I pack around all day at work, to come up with the size I needed.  I cut out one large rectangle of fabric, and hemmed two ends.  This would be the inner pocket.  I cut out another rectangle of fabric of the same width, a fair bit shorter, and hemmed those ends.  This would be the outer pocket.  I put them together and sewed a few seams in them to hold my pens and scissors.  

Then the fun part.  I cut a heart shape out of the lambskin and used seam stick tape to tape it onto the outer pocket.  I tested the width of my zigzag stitch on a scrap first to make sure I could make this happen, then oh-so-carefully and meticulously sewed the heart onto the canvas.  Adorable!  

Sewed the velcro onto the webbing and the webbing on to the canvas, and finished the edges up with strips of leather.  Voila!  All my stuff, neatly packed away in a pocket around my waist.  All my essentials are at hand, and I'm no longer over heating for the mere sake of the stuff I have to carry.  Cute, huh?

I already have an order to make another one for one of my fellow nurses :)

Heart applique.

Oh how I love seamstick.

My hearky machine.