Purses for teachers...

I decided to make some pencil cases/purses for my son’s teachers as a leaving present. It was his last day at pre-school on Wednesday and so typically I ended up slightly panicked on Tuesday. I already had the material and I had made some similar ones previously after searching for ‘zipped lined pouch’ on the web.

This time I used this tutorial over at flossieteacakes, because I like the zip end covers and it also looked beautifully clear and nicely photographed.

My stitches are not as neat as hers though...

How do you sew two perfectly straight lines over a bumpy zip anyway? And even though the instructions very clearly stated that the zip should be exactly 8 inches, I managed to miss-measure and ended up with a zip too long for my nicely cut out pieces of fabric. 

On the right is the fabric cut to the tutorial measurements and on the left the fabric cut to the zip length! I put these 8 inch pieces to one side to make more smaller purses at a later stage.

I also only had iron-on interfacing instead of sew-on interfacing and I feel that left my fabric looking slightly wrinkled even after a good ironing. I think the iron on stuff I used was a bit dodgy as that didn’t happen last time I made one...Really I think I should have used sew-in...If Flossie says use sew-in then do it!

All in all, my purses turned out okay and in fact after the zip fiasco I think the longer purses look more like pencil cases which is probably a more useful shape. The teachers really liked them. 

Also measure twice, cut once, the golden rule for EVERYTHING! should have been followed. However, I do think that the best way to make these pouches is to buy the zip that looks the right length for what you want to do and then work out the rest of the dimensions from there.

Now I have picked up some pretty pink 8 inch zips and already have the fabric cut out with interfacing stuck on so it shouldn’t take me more than an hour to knock up a couple more. I may even keep one for myself!

Thanks, Nix!