Trash to Treasure Zippy Pouch

It finally happened - this weekend, after an intense February that was determined to remove every last bit of my sanity, my children got sick of me. Saturday morning around 11 am they just looked at me and said with their eyes "we need to be apart from you today," and blessedly found ways to keep themselves amused practically until Monday morning.

It was blissful.

It was also necessary for me to whip up a birthday party gift for one of their friends, which we of course collectively remembered at 6pm on Saturday evening for a Sunday at noon party and after a glass of wine (for me, not all of us. Just to be clear). But one of the joys of living in a quilting home is the ability to shop in one's stash. So down to the studio I went. I may or may not have taken the wine.

I've taken to making little zippy pouches for the preteen set. They are cute, they are quick, and they are getting to the age where they might want to carry makeup and stuff in their backpacks. My dancer daughter Paige likes to fill hers with her hair pins and bun wraps, which let me assure you is MUCH more preferable to her former storage method which involved throwing the wraps (think mini hair net) all over the floor of any room of the house so that from not much of a distance they looked like a dead mouse sprawled on the carpet. Even she freaked when she came upon one once, but did that stop her? No. Not until she had a cute pouch.

Armed with the wine and my sense of color I chose some fabric combos. Decided on the blue. Not that it matttered, in the end. Read on.

I use this tutorial from noodlehead. I have no idea where she got that name for her blog, but I do know that the tutorial is awesome and I've never made one that wasn't cute. Observe.

From a leftover block I couldn't figure out what I had done to make it in the first place.

Look! I can make my photos look just like noodlehead's!

Mouse trap, or Paige's pouch? You decide. Also made from a leftover block.

Front of bag

Back of bag. I mean come on. Cuteness aplenty.

Knowing I could make a cool zippy before my glass was empty, I grabbed the two blue polka dot fabrics I'd selected along with the teal zipper and headed for the sewing machine. But suddenly I was struck immobile right in my tracks. WHAT was that thing lying on the floor over there? Some might think it was yet another of Paige's bun wraps. It was not. It was this amazing cool leftover strip pieced border segment, and I could almost hear it crying "Use me! Use me!" 

So I did. It even went better with the zipper, so I was sold.

The only thing I really do differently than noodlehead (at this point I am wishing I knew her name because I just feel weird referring to her as what seems at least a nicer word for pasta face, but still) is to quilt the fabric I'm using for the outside before I cut the pieces or start sewing. So first I whipped out the 505 and layered it with batting, then headed for my trusty rack of variegated threads to choose the best, most yummy one.

Options one and three are actually NOT the same. The one furthest to the right has green in it. The other has more purple. One must look very closely to see any difference at all, though. Obviously it was imperative that I have both in my collection.

I went with option one, aqua/teal/purple but sans green. I was afraid the green would scream "LOOK AT ME!" but like it mattered, because let's face it:

1. You can't even see the green in the photo.
2. This was for a 12 year old girl. Is she looking at the quilting thread? No.

Once the random garbage I found on the floor strip set I so carefully chose from my vast collection was quilted, I was beside myself with glee to find this cool blue and green floral for the lining.

Perfection is overrated, but sometimes it shows up anyway.

Then came the fun of putting it all together, which honestly isn't all that interesting or any different from how noodlehead does it, so you can just refer to her blog to figure it all out. Then if you have problems you can contact her, not me. See how I passed the buck right back to her there? But I promise you won't have problems. It really is the best tutorial ever.

I didn't take any photos of the process of sewing it together except this one, because it cracked me up how as I was turning it right side out it ended up looking like a mushroom wearing a shower cap for a minute there.

Or not. It might have been the wine.

A few finishing touches like some topstitching and a zipper tag and voila! Is it not the cutest? Even if you don't think so, humor me.

Only drawback was it didn't stand out against my cutting mat, but that's what black fabric is for.

So there you go. The next time your daughters remind you they need a birthday gift in the morning (the preteen social equivalent of "I forgot to tell you I need 3 dozen cupcakes tomorrow" delivered at 9pm), remember me and my trash to treasure zippy. Remember noodlehead. And for heaven's sake, remember the wine.