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.