Tutorial! Zippered pouch

My first tutorial! Ever! My daughter's friend requested a small makeup pouch, so I designed this for her, it's the perfect size to fit in your purse, carry feminine products, makeup, ipod...and it's CUTE!! Most of all, it was pretty easy to make, less than an hour from start to finish, including taking the pictures!


1. Cut out pieces...you will need:

* 1 zipper (mine was about 6.5" or 7. Longer is OK, you can trim it, shorter is not so good)
* 1 applique embellishment (or not, I like the color it added, mine was made from an English paper piecing hexagon)
* 2 pieces for outer fabric
--1 piece for top of pouch: 4.5"x 6.5"
--1 piece for bottom of pouch: 11.5"x6.5"
1 piece of cloth for lining: 15.5"x6.5"
(optional) 1 piece of batting or felt or flannel for a lining, gives the pouch some stability, but can be left out. Or, you can iron on some fusible web to the back of the lining, that'd work too!

Iron one short end of your main fabrics, and both ends of the lining fabric at 1/4". I used flannel for a support rather than batting, and cut it 1/4" shorter than the lining on each side. Iron the lining over the batting.

Pin the zipper to your bottom outer fabric and lining fabric on the other side.

Sew together (should have 3 layers) using your zipper foot (I have a lovely Bernina that my Mom gave me last year!)

Pin the upper outside fabric to the other side of the zipper and (here's the tricky part) pin the lining fabric to the opposite side of the zipper.

Sew in place.

At this point I added the blue hexagon about 1.5" under the zipper and in from the edge. I used an applique stitch to do it.

Sew the two outer fabric pieces with right sides together.

Iron and sew along the seam where your two outer fabrics meet. Another option is to hand embroider a straight stitch right there, which gives it a nice touch.

Lay the pouch down and adjust where you want the opening to be. I put it around 1.5" from the top. I also like to add a little homemade tag to the side, sort of cute.

If you're putting a tag on, pin it on, right side of tag facing right side of fabric. I forgot to take a picture, but at this point, turn the entire bag inside out, and pin the open sides together, then sew them down, about 1/4" from the edge. Make sure to leave the zip open so you can turn it back around when done!

I trimmed the edges down a bit and then zig-zagged.

So, now to make the box corners. I like to put a pin along the center of the bottom of the project to make it easier to fold it down.

Fold the fabric down with the center of the zig-zag edge meeting the center of the bottom of your pouch, pin to secure.

Lay it out flat, and measure about 1" from the bottom corner, draw a line.

Sew along the line (this will make about a 2" bottom, but if you want a slimmer bag, measure the corners at about 3/4".)

Cut off the corners and zig-zag the open edge.

Turn it right-side out and tah-dah! There you are!

Since this was my first tutorial, i know it's gotta be confusing in some parts and probably not friendly to a newbie sewer! Write me if you have a question so I can work on clarifying my messy explanation!