Pouch, please!

Once again, I have made two versions of a project from Ayumi Takahashi’s super-cute book Patchwork, Please! My dilemma was deciding which to keep and which to give away. I love them both too much!

It was a lucky coincidence that the ‘keep calm and press on’ text fits so well.

I strayed from the triangle pattern on one side of the orange pouch to add a small print that reads, ‘Keep calm and press on’.

I chose bright and cheerful colours for the outside to contrast with the black and white prints.

For the multicoloured pouch, I decided to use a chunky zipper. It looked so cute in the shop. I am happy with the result, but sewing over the enormous, chunky plastic zipper teeth was a bit hair-raising.

You can see how chunky the red zipper is compared with the orange one.

I used fusible polyester batting for the first time in this project. I usually make do with offcuts and scraps of cotton quilt batting, but the fusible polyester stuff is much lighter, less bulky and easier to work with in projects like these. I cheated on the quilting (less is more, right?) and did not need to use adhesive spray.

I have heaps of measuring-tape ribbon in my stash, left over from when I was trying to find accurate ribbon for my growing tree wall-hanging. I kept buying bits in the hope that one would be right. They came in handy for these pouches.

I am finding that it is better to trace than to photocopy the templates in the book when preparing foundation papers. Because the templates are often close to the book’s spine, it is almost impossible to photocopy them without distortion. I learned this the hard way with the paper-piecing template for these pouches. By the time I came to making the pencil cases, I knew to trace the pencil tip templates by hand.

I made one pouch in orange to go with my orange-shaped sewing kit.

I made one pouch in orange to coordinate with my orange sewing kit and the other in bright florals, spots and text prints. I cart my orange sewing kit about the house all the time. It fits needles, pins, a small spool of thread, a thimble and a small pair of scissors. It is a very portable little hand-sewing kit. Sometimes, however, I need a bit more – such as a large pair of scissors or a few different coloured threads – and I thought having a coordinating pouch would be nice.

For this reason, I said a reluctant farewell to the multicoloured one. Sniff. I gave it away in my sewing group’s Kris Kringle swap last week. I know it has gone to a good home.

I lined this one with a sewing text print.

You can learn more about Ayumi and her cute book at her blog, Pink Penguin.

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