Suit Patch Pocket Advice Needed

[Gerry]

I need some tips with regard to suit patch-pockets. Do you sew them totally flat, or make them slightly over sized and ease them into the desired, finished size, pre-marked on the cloth?

A vintage pattern that I bought (for reference only) takes the latter approach. This would create a nice amount of ease, compensating for the curvature of the body and allowing hands to slip in easily. However, I'm pretty sure pattern matching would go out of the window. So, if sewing in flat, to pattern match nicely, is it a case of gently stretching pocket areas over a ham, to compensate for curvature when wearing the coat? Or is tightness not an issue and I'm overthinking this?

Also, any advice on angling the pockets as well as their ideal size? The aforementioned pattern tilts all the pockets almost imperceptibly downwards towards the CF. The inner edge is then straightened slightly so compensate. I cut a breast patch-pocket following these principles and pinned it to a toile I'm working on. The angling definitely looks better (a totally straight and symmetrical pocket looked workmanlike by comparison). Are there any guidelines that you follow if you do this? I haven't tried the angling on the hip pockets yet, but it makes more sense to do the angling the other way (dips down imperceptibly at the back). Perhaps it was an aesthetic decision by the sewing pattern creator.

Any tips on patch pockets in general are appreciated. BTW, the following vid for a totally lined patch pocket shows the method I'll be following. Not in English, but easy to see/understand what's going on:

https://vimeo.com/312373618

[Gerry]

I've spent the afternoon doing some research. The general consensus is that fullness is required to compensate for the curvature of the body. This video of Rory Duffy demonstrates him sewing the pockets over a sleeve-board to create said fullness:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYVFMQoaXCU

All very well, but what of patterned cloth? There's a tiny bit of info in A Practical Guide To Making and Decorating Of All Kinds of Pockets W Rines pg 16-17 (no idea where I got this book scan from, perhaps the old forum?):

The one difficulty that does arise in these stripe patches is to secure a slight fulness of appearance in the finished pocket without destroying the run of the pattern. The general practice in patches is to cut them slightly larger about the lower half, so that a "little life," as the tailors terms it, shall be observable, and prevent the dragging of the patch when anything is put in them.

The extra material is both in length and width, and is kept in gradually; it can be done with care in patterned material ... without seriously affecting the match of the pocket pattern with that of the forepart.

Not much help without it being demonstrated. Interestingly, the pockets shown in the accompanying diagram are all on the slant, dipping down towards the centre front. Which seems counter intuitive to me, but what  do I know. From my experiments so far, it is better aesthetically.

Cabrera has a little info on pattern matching of patches, but (despite saying that fullness is required IIR?) seems to imply that for perfect alignment the pocket is sewn flat? Not much detail given, but that was my interpretation. What am I missing? Some guidance is given re dimensions, though.

Could the pocket cloth be stretched along the cross-grain, then eased in so that the pattern aligns with the front cloth? The cloth I have in mind for the jacket I wish to make is a monochrome gun-club check. Small enough to cope with some misalignment, but ideally I'd like things to be spot-on. Hence the pattern matching questions.

[peterle]

In think the pattern matching of the big pockets is limited to the horizontal stripes anyhow. The dart allows vertical matching only for a few centimeters.
And the chest pocket is small enough that the vertical matching shift won't be to obvious.( Especially when you dont't sew the pocket on the very edge).
I personally wouldn't trust that a stretched pocket would stay stretched permanently. Depends on the fabric. It probably works with something like  Harris tweed?

[Hendrick]

One of my "all time favourits". My only rule is the closer to the center front, the more important the match becomes. I prepare the pockets and pin them on the foreparts on a ham to ad a bit of volume and baste them on loosely. I use a bit of trickery with iron and steam to match the pattern if necessary, I then baste the pockets on firmly before sewing. Generally a "droplet" shaped rounded patch pocket is more forgiving to the eye (curves cutting geometrics). My rule of thumb for the "drop" shape of the patch pocket is that the bottom should be one half straight and two quarters curved and for the sides of the pocket three quarters straight and one quarter curved for a sportcoat. And like Peterle said when you set the pocket stitched at, say 5mm edge, the edges will have a slight "float" that detaches the pocket and the forepart visually.

Cheers, Hendrick

[Gerry]

Generally a "droplet" shaped rounded patch pocket is more forgiving to the eye (curves cutting geometrics). My rule of thumb for the "drop" shape of the patch pocket is that the bottom should be one half straight and two quarters curved and for the sides of the pocket three quarters straight and one quarter curved for a sportcoat.

That is an extremely good rule of thumb! I bought the vintage pattern (early 60s) because it has the shaping that I like for patch pockets and the fronts. I'm using them for reference and the dimensions are very close to what you've described. There's not much flare at the sides, from top to bottom, but the roundness more-or-less follows your proportions. Thank you! 

[Schneiderfrei]

Generally a "droplet" shaped rounded patch pocket is more forgiving to the eye (curves cutting geometrics). My rule of thumb for the "drop" shape of the patch pocket is that the bottom should be one half straight and two quarters curved and for the sides of the pocket three quarters straight and one quarter curved for a sportcoat.

Thats definitely how I do shirt pockets, a very slight bag to the bottom.

[Gerry]

Might as well make this thread a hub for patch-related content (seeing as there's such a dearth of information when it comes to bespoke methods).

The following, linked vid (embedding wasn't permitted) is very similar to the 'hand sewn' patch-pocket method outlined in Tailoring, Traditional and Contemporary Techniques by N. Marie Ledbetter (IIR, it's available to 'borrow' at internet archive and I screen grabbed the stuff on pockets):

https://youtu.be/cS0qLWB6YIg?si=LNoshQmhuKhFNrI3

The lining uses a smaller pressing template so that it doesn't peep out of the sides of the pocket. The method in the above video differs from Ledbetter's, however, in that both the pocket hem and lining are machined to the front cloth. The pocket proper is then flipped over to lie on top, then felled by hand to secure it. What is so clever about this variation is that the machine stitches of the lining and hem take all the strain, which is a lot stronger than just hand sewing the cloth.

An even simpler way of doing this is demonstrated in the following vid, though it doesn't make sense that the same size template was used for both cloth and lining (the latter requiring a smaller sized one for marking, surely):

[Hendrick]

At 6;00 in this vid shows how I was tought to pull in curves... interesting to see it in a Japanese video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UzaUI4ayys

Cheers, Hendrick

[Hendrick]

Generally a "droplet" shaped rounded patch pocket is more forgiving to the eye (curves cutting geometrics). My rule of thumb for the "drop" shape of the patch pocket is that the bottom should be one half straight and two quarters curved and for the sides of the pocket three quarters straight and one quarter curved for a sportcoat.

Thats definitely how I do shirt pockets, a very slight bag to the bottom.

hand of the master...

[Gerry]

At 6;00 in this vid shows how I was tought to pull in curves... interesting to see it in a Japanese video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UzaUI4ayys

Cheers, Hendrick

Yes, the drawing-in-cloth round a template method is used in the book I mentioned above, whereas the videos I posted follow more of a shirt-making approach. Drawing-in is certainly more accurate. Either way, I prefer pressing around templates to bagging-out. I tried the latter a few years ago and abandoned it pretty quickly due to the typical point and seam turning problems associated with that approach. The end results looked very uneven and lumpen. Obviously many get good results that way, but it's not for me.

In the second vid I linked to, the way I'd do things is to cut around the pocket, after its seams had been pressed inwards, to reduce the lining to the same shape and size. Then I'd mark the lining using a second template a quarter of an inch smaller all round. Next, sew round the marked line to affix the hem and lining to the cloth and, finally, press the lining's seams inwards rather than reducing them - if the lining is going to take all the stress, it pays to keep the seam allowance rather than cutting it skinny (IMO). I'm really taken with that approach, though, and will experiment with some samples when I have a moment.