Technology and Making

Yes, I know, I'm a massive geek. I made gadget pockets for my jeans.

My rationale was: There are several devices I like to have on me most of the time - the foremost being my T-Mobile G1 and my iPod. They're too bulky for regular jeans pockets, and I'm not always wearing a jacket or carrying a bag, so I always end up carrying the damn things around and leaving them places. But I'm basically always wearing a pair of jeans.

They were a little fiddly to make, requiring a couple of false starts, but each one is made from a single piece of denim (hacked off an older, shredded pair of jeans). I kept a hem at the top of each one for durability and to give them a bit of character. For the iPod pocket, since it's very slim, I got away with just using a flat piece, folding the edges under and using very small, tight overstitch all round the edges.

The denim's interesting to work with - once you cut off a piece the edges fray very quickly, as anyone who's made cutoff shorts will know. But if you fold the edges under and make your stitches just far enough in to hook them through the crossways weave (warp?), the result seems to be very durable.

For the G1 pocket I put darts in the two bottom corners to give it a thicker shape - this made overstitching the edges considerably fiddlier, but the G1's just too thick to put in a flat pocket, however wide. I left the "chin" of the phone protruding over the top, partly because it's too thick to incorporate into the pocket and partly to make it easier to grab a hundred times an hour :)

They would have been a little more stylish on the front of the legs, but the devices are just too big and heavy to have there - they'd be uncomfortable when I sit down and apt to get banged into things. This configuration works pretty well sitting or standing, and feels comfortable walking - they're not banging into my legs and they won't hop out when I run. It's a first experiment and my stitching could use work, but I'm pretty pleased with the result.

Labels: Clothing, Denim, gadgets, geek, IPod, Jeans, pockets, sewing, T-Mobile G1