At my recent checkup, my doctor, who is an active duty officer in the Air Force, was complaining that she didn't have anywhere to carry her pen in her Class B uniform blouse. (The Air Force women's Class B uniform blouse doesn't have any pockets.)
My husband mentioned to her that when he's wearing a shirt without a pocket (which almost never happens anymore), he would clip his pen so that it was sticking out between the buttons in the front button placket. My doc thanked him for the suggestion but pointed out that wearing a pen that way would not only technically make her be "out of uniform," but that it also wouldn't sit as well on a woman (breasts, obvs). I included a random photo from the internet, below, to show (more or less) the way my husband was suggesting she could wear her pen, except that this picture doesn't show the pen's clip holding onto the front of the button placket the way my husband was describing.
My doc was wearing an ID lanyard, however, so the idea that popped into my head was to sew a pen pocket for her that could be attached to her lanyard and was made from a similar-color fabric as the light, almost baby blue of her uniform blouse (in the hope that the color would make it less conspicuous). The only way I would ever be able to exactly match the fabric color is if I were to buy a woman's Class B uniform blouse at the AAFES clothing sales and cut it up to use the fabric to sew the pen pocket. So I'm hoping that the fabric I used will be a close-enough match.
I asked her if adding a pen pocket like that to her lanyard would make her be considered to be "out of uniform," and she didn't think that it would, so we agreed that a pen pocket on her lanyard could maybe work for her.
I told her I would sew one for her and bring it to my next appointment (whenever that is! LOL! I don't actually see her very often).
After searching around online, I settled on this tutorial by Ashley Hough for how to sew an elastic bookmark, because the pen/pencil pouch portion of the tutorial was a close match to what I had in mind to give to my doctor. The only real difference with mine is that instead of sewing the pouch to the long loop of elastic, I added a button hole to the top flap for the lanyard's plastic loop to fit through. (This was the first time I'd ever used the button hole function on my new sewing machine, so that was exciting, too. I think it turned out pretty well and was a lot easier than the way I used to have to sew button holes.)
The finished dimensions are about 6.5 inches long by about 1.75 inches wide. It has two pockets, so it can hold two pens or one pen and one pencil. It was a quick and easy project and only required just a small amount of fabric. I also added featherweight fusible interfacing to the back of both pieces of fabric to help them hold their shape.
I hope my doctor finds this little accessory helpful while she's on the job!
