Noodlehead's Open Wide Pouch

I have been working on the Open Wide Zipper Pouch this weekend. I need to know how to sew it well because I am in a swap where this pouch is the main swap item. It took me a few tries to get the hang of it. The first one took me two hours and the third took an hour so I think I can safely say I have the hang of it now. (Yesterday was a frustrating day of learning it with a few "sewing words" being said and plenty of time with my good buddy the seam ripper.) That being said, the tutorial by Anna of "Noodlehead" is fantastic and if you remove distractions and pay attention to what you are doing you should have no major troubles. It's just the whole "learning something new" part that was getting to me yesterday. I sewed one this morning and all went very well.

I used some of my favourite Tula Pink fabrics for these. I even used my Tula Pink Renaissance ribbons on the raccoon bags. None of these are for me to keep so I am feeling quite virtuous in sharing. ;) The Pink one is for the February birthday girl in #sewcutebirthday club on Instagram. The Raccoon one on the left is for the February birthday girl in #canuckbdayclub on Insgram and the one in the middle is for my Auntie who must undergo a double mastectomy next week. I thought this would be good for packing things to take to the hospital. (I also made her a pink ribbon mug rug. If you click over to my Instagram - link in the mason jars upper right of blog - you can see that one and a rainbow mug rug, I made both today.)

These bags were items 6 and 7 on my Q1 Finish Along Goals List and I am linking up with The 2015 Finish Along.


2015 FAL at On the Windy Side

The appeal of these, apart from being great looking, is that they actually do "open wide" so you can easily find what you are looking for in your pouch. This is achieved by having the zipper extend past the edge of the bag. I am quite good at zippers now so that was not where the challenge lay for me. It was boxing off the corners that I had some trouble with. Normally when I box bag corners I do not yet have the lining attached but with this pouch the lining gets attached with the zipper so you are kind of working blindly on the inside of the bag and it's hard to tell if your seams are matching up. And honestly, on all three of these none of the seams at the bottom match perfectly, but they're close enough. I'm not going to drive myself crazy. :)

A look at the Tula Pink lining on the pink bag.

Cute gingham in the blue bag.

So, I feel confident now that I can make my swap item for the Sweet and Salty Easter Swap. And I feel that the recipients of these bags will be happy as well. I hope I remember to make myself one too.

My tips: Even though the tutorial says iron-on interfacing is optional I recommend doing it. I just used a light woven interfacing and it made quite a difference as far as the stability of the pouch. Also, when boxing your corners pin the seams well. And lastly, press well around the top (avoiding the zipper) before top-stitching as the final step of finishing your bag.

I hope you try out Anna's free tutorial. It's fun!