Phone Holster

“Ladie’s” fashion is stupid in a lot of ways, but the lack of a sensible place to put your phone is one of the worst stupidities. I fix all my jeans with a phone holster on the outside of the thigh, where my phone is in easy reach at all times without getting in the way of me bending my leg.

All you need is a bit of fabric, some scissors, some pins and a sewing machine (or the willingness to hand-stitch it).

For the fabric, I used the leg of some old, knackered jeans. Always keep your old, knackered jeans! Stick your phone on and mark (or just mentally note) about a 2cm margin all round.

And then cut that shape out.

I like to cut out a corner for the actual pocket opening, becaues it makes it easy to grab the phone and pull it out by a corner, but (if you get the size right) it’s pretty secure and unlikely to fall out with three corners inside the pocket. I don’t measure, I just cut. And yes, that means I sometimes get it slightly wrong, but I do it so quickly it’s not a giant pain to do it over if necessary. Anyway, here’s an indication of the recommended corner cut for a left-legged holster:

The next step is to turn under and stitch down that curved cut. My denim is usually slightly stretchy, which helps the turning under, but I can usually manage a 5mm single hem even if it’s not stretchy. There’s no need to turn the edge under twice, it won’t really fray on the bias.

And then you need to mark where you want the holster to go on the jeans. I usually center it on the side seam of the left leg but you can put it anywhere you want. Mark the height of the top with a pin.

Lay the jeans out and lay the pocket on at the right height (remembering that about 1cm seam allowance will eaten up all round.) Carefully turn under said seam allowance and pin the pocket all round, making sure you’re only pinning it to one layer of jeans, not to any stray pocket fabric or inside leg or whatever!

At this point, if I was being more meticulous, I’d have trimmed a little bit off this side and re-pinned it to make it a tiny bit tighter.

But I didn’t care and now my phone rattles around a bit in its holster and it’s fine, nobody died.

Sewing it on is a little bit fiddly, as you have to wrestle just the one layer of your jeans leg into the machine. It’s easier the bigger the jeans are. Sorry, skinny people. Not too many disadvantages, but this is one of them.

And of course you can hand-stitch if you prefer. Either way you do it, reinforce the ends of the stitching, where the phone goes in the gap, because that’s the bit that will get pulled at the most.

And you’re ready to swagger about showing off your very sensible and convenient phone holster.