Visual Diary Pocket

I've recently switched from using a spiral bound visual diary to one from Moleskine. While I like the paper in the Moleskine diary better, I miss being able to put my pen in the spiral binding of my old visual diary. And I am pretty much over searching for my pen. So, I decided to make a pocket for my Moleskine visual diary that had room for a pen as well.

This is a textile collage that my friend Lisa Walton of Dyed and Gone to Heaven gave me a while back. I used it in a faux felt demo I did at the SCQuilters Retreat in Perth. Actually, just half of it.

Looks like it will be big enough ... Houston, we have lift off!

I trimmed up the textile collage and folded it in half. One more check on the size ...

... perfect. Now which thread to use? This is why you need a nice stash of threads ... dark orange rayon ... bright orange rayon ... a very rich orange cotton ... decisions, decisions, decisions ...

I think the dark orange rayon will do the trick.

First step was to stitch across the top of the pocket. I used a wide zig zag and caught two strands of pearle cotton under the stitch. I think that it makes for a nicer edge and maybe makes the edge a bit less likely to stretch over time. Then I did 4-6 more zig zags across the edge, a bit narrower this time, to fill it in and be sure that the edge was well covered.

Here's a close up of one of the corners. You can see the pearle cotton caught under the stitching.

And here's the back. Yes, I used a bright pink cotton in the bobbin. Trying to decide if the pocket needs to be lined. Nope. Looks OK as is to me.

To finish making the pocket, I switched from the open toed embroidery foot to a walking foot, reduced the pressure on the presser foot from 3 to 2 (we're sewing through quite a few layers here). I stitched down the side 1/4" from the edge back and forth a couple of times, going slow enough to hit the same line of stitching each pass. I did the same thing across the bottom.

Then I zig zagged the raw edges ... remember, no lining ... to keep things inside nice and tidy. I didn't zig zag around the corner but stopped before I got there.

Here's a close-up of the top of the pocket ... notice that I stopped the zig zag before I got to the stitching at the top edge.

I cut the notch off the corner to reduce the bulk when the pocket is turned right-side out. Here's a close-up of the corner.

And, just for completeness, a close-up of the corner on the folded side.

This took some determination. Two layers of felt in the middle makes it sturdy but a bit resistant to being turned right-side out.

I used a chopstick to get the corner with the notch cut into it to look like a sort of square corner.

Another size check ... I can't help myself ... it's an Engineer Thing.

And here's the finished visual diary pocket.

Very good job, if I do say so myself. Now, what to do with the other half of the textile collage?