Small Zipper Pouch

This is a little companion pouch for my wife's cosmetic bag that I made some time back. It's for little things (obviously) like hairpins, tweezers, safety pins...you get the picture. I'm by no means an expert with a sewing machine, but thought this would be a nice quick little project to share with this great community.

Step 1: Gather Your Materials

For this project, I used the following:

• Zipper (the one I used is way longer than it needs to be but I bought a bunch of them)
• Exterior fabric 5" x 6"
• Interior fabric 5" x 6"
• Coordinating thread and bobbin
• Fusible Fleece 5" x 6" ( I used Pellon 987F )
• Rotary cutter / Scissors
• Clips / pins

Step 2: Getting Started

I had already fused the fleece to the exterior and cut it before starting pictures..sorry for that.

Iron the 2 pieces of fabric to get them as wrinkle free as you can. Following the directions for your interfacing (fleece) get the exterior fabric bonded to the fleece. Cut each piece in half so that you have 4 pieces 5" x 3" The picture does not show the lining cut to size but you're smart ;)

Step 3: Sewing the Zipper

Zippers can be scary. That's why I bought a bunch of them to practice. Place your exterior fabric "right side up" and by right side, I mean the pretty, non-interfaced side. Line your zipper tape up with the top edge of the exterior then place the interior fabric "right side down" along the zipper tape as well. Make sure that the zipper is facing downward. (see picture) Using a zipper foot if you have one, sew the 3 pieces together ( exterior, zipper, liner ). Repeat this with the other side of the zipper.

Step 4: Top Stitching

Once you get everything attached to the zipper, put "wrong sides together" and iron it so it's pretty flat. Run a top stitch along each side as close to the zipper as you like...I did about 1/8". Thes step adds a nice finished look to the pouch

Step 5: Sew It Up

Open the zipper 1/2 to 3/4 of the way...this makes it so you can flip it when you're done sewing. Place right sides together and sew around the perimeter leaving a 1/4" seam allowance. I didn't get a picture of the starting and finishing point but, you want to leave about a 2" hole in the middle of the liner, so you'll start near one corner of the liner and sew around just past the other corner of the liner. Make sure to backstitch across the zipper and at the starting and ending of the stitching. Nip the corners off making sure not to cut into the stitches. Cut the zipper flush with the sides and turn everything right side out. You should have something like this picture when you get it turned. You can use a chopstick to push out the corners.

Step 6: Close It Up and Enjoy