Zipper Pouch Tutorial

I love making zipper pouches like this because they're useful for a wide variety of things. I have one I use as a makeup bag when I travel and another I use to bring my lunch to work.

For this bag, I used the faux chenille fabric I made a few days ago, a pink 9" zipper, and some green scrap fabric for the lining. Cut the fabric the same width as the length of the zipper, including the ends. Make the other dimension the depth you want your bag to be plus extra for the seam allowance.

Start by pinning one piece of your outer material, zipper, and one piece of your lining material material together. The top side of the zipper should face the right side of the outer material.

Once sewn, it should look like the picture above. Pin the outer fabric and lining together, right sides out.

Topstitch along the edge near the zipper to secure the fabric and keep it from catching in the zipper.

Do the same for the other side of the bag.

Unzip the zipper about halfway and pin the outer fabrics together and the lining fabrics together, right sides in. Starting along the bottom of the lining fabric, stitch along the perimeter of the fabric. Stop sewing a few inches before you get to the starting stitches to leave a hole that the pouch can be turned through. Pink or trim the edges, cutting extra close to the corners to avoid bunching.

Flip your bag right side out and stitch the hole closed either by hand or machine.

Tada! A nice little bag for whatever you want.

Faux Chenille Tutorial

A few days ago my mom's friend gave me three big bins filled with small bits and pieces of fabric leftover from projects. Almost all of the prints are hideous, which made it a perfect opportunity to try out faux chenille. Faux chenille is a layering technique that showcases the print of the top fabric and uses the rest of the layers to create an interesting texture without being seen.

To make faux chenille, you need 4-5 pieces of natural, woven fabric in order for it to fray nicely when cut. Quilting cotton and flannel work well; I used four square layers of cotton for this piece. I'm going to use my faux chenille panel to make a lined zipper pouch, so I stacked all my layers with the right sides up since the back side of the fabric will be hidden. If you are making a blanket, the fabric that you are keeping intact (the green and white floral in this case) needs to face the opposite way as the other layers since it'll be visible.

After stacking the layers, pin them together and mark a line diagonally from corner to corner. Keeping the layers of fabric you will be cutting through on top, stitch along the line. Using the presser foot as a guide, keep sewing lines across the fabric until the entire surface is covered. Don't bother backstitching, making knots, or trimming thread ends as you go since the whole piece will be trimmed down at the end.

Every once in a while, check that everything's staying straight and that the layers aren't getting too many wrinkles in them. This technique is fairly forgiving if your lines aren't perfectly straight or if the fabric bunches a little.

Use a rotary cutter or scissors to square up the sides and trim away excess thread and fabric.

Cut between each stitch line, snipping all but the bottom layer.

At this point, the fabric doesn't look too exciting. The real magic happens after washing and drying the material a few times when the fabric starts to curl and fuzz up.

The main thing I realized sewing faux chenille is that it takes a loooong time and a lot of thread. It took me about 20 minutes to sew all the lines on a 13" square and about as long to make all the cuts. It's a neat technique that I'll probably try out a few more times, but I don't think I'd ever have the patience to make a whole blanket.

Koi Dress (McCall's 6887)

My mom brought me this beautiful koi print fabric from Hawaii and I was excited to use if for this pattern. It's got the slightest bit of stretch to it and sews up so easily. After sewing McCall's 6887 the first time, I realized I should probably make a muslin before trying it again so I could get a better fit for the bodice. I sewed a combo of views A and B (sleeveless A-line with no back cutout) in size 20. This time, I modified the A/B cup bodice side front piece to eliminate excess fabric on the top of the bust and the fit is much better.

I didn't have any material that would work for a lining (and this fabric doesn't need it, anyway) so I used a bias facing. I could have been a little more careful about pressing it in further so the bias tape doesn't show from the front, but it's not bad for my first time.

Another skill I've recently acquired is serging! My mom found a White Speedylock 299D serger at a thrift store for $30 and I picked up four different colors of serger thread from Salvation Army for a dollar apiece. Having four colors helped a ton in figuring out tension settings. I'm using it only for inner seams so it doesn't matter that the serged edge is teal, purple, black, and white.

I got a little scared since everything I've read online about this model says it's one to avoid, but after looking through the manual and watching a lot of Youtube tutorials it's up and running with no issues. It makes finishing seams so quick and they look so much more professional than pinking them, which is what I usually did before. I want to serge everything now!

To fix the issues with the skirt panels, I redrafted the side and back pieces to match the bodice seams. It wasn't hard at all and worked way better than the original pattern. I meant to make pockets but got too excited about serging and finished the side seams before putting them in. Oops! The fit is (almost) perfect and I look forward to tweaking future versions to make it even better. I already have a fabric in mind...

Cutout Dress (McCall's 6887)

I picked up McCall's 6887 a while ago but was waiting on it since I wasn't sure which fabric to use. It's a simple A-line dress with sleeve, pencil skirt, and back cutout options. Instead of doing a proper muslin, I started sewing view A (sleeveless A-line with the back cutout) out of a bed sheet I had leftover from another dress. I should really make real muslins instead of doing these sort of half muslins that I end up making into real pieces of ill-fitting clothing. Someday I'll learn my lesson. Maybe.

My measurements put me between a size 20 and 22, and I decided to go with the 20. I'm glad I did because it's still a hair too big. This pattern uses cup sizes and I was right on the borderline between an A/B cup and a C cup. I cut the C cup size since in real life I wear a DD and couldn't imagine that an A/B cup would fit. I was wrong, the C cup ended up being a bit poochy, especially above the bust. It's still wearable with a padded bra.

However, the back cutout is not compatible with any of my bras. The piece that is supposed to cover the band is wide enough but sits way too high on my back. It wouldn't be too hard to alter the pattern and make it work, but it's too late for this dress since the top is fully lined and installed. I forgot to put interfacing in where the buttonholes go, so I sewed the buttons through both panels. It's easy to slip the dress over my head so this was a non-issue.

The pattern calls for the bodice lining to be slipstitched in by hand which was annoying but ended up looking nice. There aren't great instructions about how to attach the edges of the bodice to the skirt so I just overlapped it a tad and stitched it up. Not the most elegant, but it works and isn't really noticeable unless you're the one sewing it.

The main problem with this pattern is the skirt. Something is definitely wrong with the pattern- I had to cut out 11" from the back of the skirt, eliminating two entire panels and parts of two more. I ended up pinching out the extra fabric, sewing down the middle of the back and installing the zipper there. Not a hard fix but I was glad to be using a bed sheet instead of nice fabric!

Overall, it's a cute pattern and the modifications will be easy when I make this dress with "real" fabric.