You may have already solved all your office and/or home office storage problems. If you haven’t or if you’ve recently added another activity (eg online learning, home schooling, fitness, creative writing, etc) you may be running low on storage space. This post is a Hanging Pocket Organizer review (project by Clara of OnlineFabricStore.com).
Find the free written and video tutorials here:
This pattern is for personal use only.
For the purposes of my review, I’m going to summarize the steps, tell you what I did differently (if anything) and share my general thoughts about sewing the Hanging Pocket Organizer.
This pattern is rated “intermediate” and has an estimated completion time of 3 hours. The instructions begin with a photograph of a finished Hanging Pocket Organizer and a description of the project. Materials are covered next. Then we dive right in with the video tutorial and the text tutorial. I followed the video tutorial. I noticed a typo in the written tutorial regarding the size of the stabilizer pieces. You may wish to refer to the video for the correct measurements.
Step 1 Prepare Materials
I didn’t have the recommended stabilizer fabric. The stabilizer fabric I did have was a lighter weight so I applied medium-weight interfacing to one of the main body pieces to make up the difference. I don’t know if my vinyl is 10 gauge but I decided to use some anyhow.
Step 2 Make Pocket Fronts
My fusible stabilizer only had adhesive on one side so I used some iron-on fabric adhesive strips to adhere the layers together.
Step 3 Add Trim To Pockets
As per the tutorial, sewers who don’t have access to 25 mm bias tape tools can buy continuous bias tape. Similarly, you may wish to do so if you don’t have enough of your second fabric to cut the binding strips or to save time.
I sewed all of my binding strips into a long piece of continuous binding that I could feed through my bias tape maker in one step.
The shortest distance between the seams in my continuous binding tape was ~ 18” so it was easy to avoid having a seam in the pocket trim.
Step 4 Make Clear Label Pockets
I’ve used my vinyl for other projects (Luggage Tags, DIY Neck Wallet) but this vinyl finishing technique was new to me. I had to estimate which of my sewing machine’s preset zigzag stitches best matched the settings used in the tutorial. It took a little bit of practice to figure out exactly how far from the edge of the vinyl to sew.
Step 5 Attach The Pockets
I didn’t do as good a job cutting my main pieces as I had though and I ended up trimming quite a bit off the bottom of my Hanging Pocket Organizer. I left about 3/8” of material below the bottom pocket.
Step 6 Add The Trim
I sewed 3/8” from the edge when I sewed on the perimeter trim. I used a paperclip to help keep my continuous binding strip in place. If you’re using a paperclip, position it with the wider side up to avoid sewing over it.
Step 7 Add Ribbon
My cotton ribbon is narrower than the recommended satin ribbon. The cotton was more difficult to slide through the fabric tube than satin would be.
Here are some photos of my finished Hanging Pocket Organizer:
Conclusion
I like sewing practical items and this project is a great addition to any office space. I think the “intermediate” rating is appropriate as this project involves sewing binding and mitering corners. While it took me longer than the estimated 3 hours completion time, I think the estimate is reasonable. I know I would have been able to sew this Hanging Pocket Organizer much more quickly if I wasn’t stopping every so often to take notes and/or photos. My Hanging Pocket Organizer doesn’t hold its shape as well as the one in the video but it still works well. Adding a second anchor point reduces the crumpling of the top pocket. Adding a second anchor point reduces the crumpling of the top pocket. I solved the problem the pinching problem by inserting a 12” long, ¼” diameter dowel into the hanging loop and sewing loops at the ends of my ribbon to insert the dowel into. The Hanging Pocket Organizer easily holds letter-sized file folders, documents, clipboards etc.
I made a second Pocket Hanging Organizer for my A5 bullet journal, notebook and other stationary. My main pieces were 11” x 20”, my pocket pieces were 7.5” x 13.5”, my pocket stabilizer pieces were 9” x 6” and, I used ~125” of 2” wide binding strips. I used the same combination of stabilizer and medium-weight interfacing on quilting weight cottons and inserted a dowel into the hanging loop for stability.
Have you sewn a Hanging Pocket Organizer? Have you or would your try this Hanging Pocket Organizer? Subscribe to be notified of new blog posts. Comment below and/or Pin me for later!
Tanya
March 20, 2023 Update
Recently I noticed that the 1/4″ dowel in the hanging loop of my letter-sized hanging pocket organizer was curving. I replaced the 1/4″ dowels of both of hanging organizers with 3/8″ dowels. These larger dowels are much stronger and just fit in the hanging loops without needing alterations to the organizers.
Tanya
Help support Sewn By Tanya
If you love what I do, have learned from reading my blog, and/or want to support my work financially, consider becoming a Sewn By Tanya patron. Your monthly donation of $1 or more will help Sewn By Tanya grow and expand. A minimum $6 per month gives you access to Sewn By Tanya Patreon only content. There’s so much I’d love to do and you can help make it happen.
