I'll be honest and admit that I'm pretty much running on fumes tonight. I still haven't finished wrapping presents or making gifts, but I've done a lot of what I had set out to do by now, including making it through these twelve holiday posts. I had so much fun doing them, and hope you've enjoyed reading and maybe even making some of them too. Tonight's project is another fairly simple but useful tutorial on making a zipper pouch. Only very recently have I started making my own; here are a couple of examples shown below.
The blue one was my first stab at a fancy lined bag with zipper end covers (you can sort of make out the little bits of pink on either end of the zipper), and I use it as my camera case. The yellow one is felt, and I use it as a make up bag. While I found lots of tutorials online for making the first one, (my favorite, and the one I used to make the case shown, is this one) the easier felt one I figured out on my own. But if you've never made a zip pouch, this is a good one to start with for a few reasons. First, while a liner is a really nice feature, it makes the pouch a little trickier to complete. Second, who needs zipper covers? And finally, using felt (which I still have a bunch of left over from the birthday crowns for Charlie's party) means I don't have to worry about the right side and wrong side of the fabric-both sides are the same so I won't accidentally sew my bag inside out.
Apart from a zipper foot for your sewing machine, which you don't need but makes sewing a zipper a lot easier, this project requires stuff you probably already have lying around, and/or can easily pick up at any drugstore, craft store, etc.
You'll need:
2 rectangles of felt; 7" wide by 6 1/2" long
1 Zipper (either a 7" zipper or a longer one cut down to 7", with the cut end basted)
Machine zipper foot
Coordinating thread
scissors
First lay one piece of felt on the table, then lay the zipper, zip side down, on top of the felt, with the edges lined up.
Pin zipper into place. Sew along the zipper, about 1/8" away from the teeth.
Next flip the whole thing over and pin your other piece of felt to the opposite side, again lining up the top of the zipper with the top of the felt. (So the zipper will be facing you, and you'll sew the second piece of felt to the top of that part.)
Pin and sew.
Finally, unzip the zipper about halfway, and pin and sew around the open three sides of the pouch. Be sure to backstitch around the corners to make them nice and strong.
Turn the pouch inside out through the space you left for yourself where the zip was left undone.
And you're done!
My plan is to make a few more of these in bright colors and smaller sizes, which I'll use to keep stuff that I'm always losing at the bottom of my purse, like my keys and my phone. And maybe my mind. I can't ever seem to remember where I put that thing anymore.
I'll be taking the next week or two off of posting so I can kick back and enjoy time with my family.
Hope everyone out there has a happy Christmas/Hanukah/Kwanza/Festivus or, just a beautiful day. See you next year. xx
No comments:
Post a Comment