Today I have a fun and easy little zipper pouch for you. I've made a ton of these, mostly out of printed felt, but I really love these textured fabric sheets that Hobby Lobby sells too.
These two live in my purse. The giraffe print holds my nail clippers and some favorite jewelry.
The tiny little zebra pouch (it's about 2 1/2 inches tall) holds my headphones. This is a great project if you have an itty bitty, short zipper in your stash, although of course you can use a longer one and cut it down.
First of all, you're going to need your fabric sheet. Or felt. Your choice. Hobby Lobby has an assortment of these in various prints for $1.47 each. You can find them beside the craft felt.
A half sheet (cut hamburger style, not hot dog) will make a pouch the size of the giraffe print pouch above, but you can cut it to any length (or even use a whole sheet if you want a big pouch).
The fabric sheet I used is pretty sturdy, but some of the others, like the zebra and leopard print sheets, have considerable stretch in one direction. You want to make sure that when you cut it, the stretch does not run along your short edges (where the zipper will be sewn), because that will cause it to pull as you sew the zipper on, and it will cause your zipper to bow out and be wavy when closed. The stretch needs to run toward the edges of your pouch that will be sewn closed.
I just cut mine at 4 inches by the width of the sheet for this project.
Now you can totally leave your edges straight here if you'd like. These won't unravel, and of course neither will felt. But I like to cut mine with pinking shears or scallop scissors. You might get away with decorative scrapbooking scissors if they're really sharp, but I use these scalloped fabric shears. I think I got mine on Amazon (or Ebay maybe?), but you can also buy them on Etsy.
Trim both short ends with your scalloped/pinking shears.
Make sure to switch to your zipper foot, because we will be sewing these very close to the teeth of the zipper.
Because this material will show pin holes, and because the length we are dealing with is short, I recommend just holding the material and the zipper together by hand and feeding it slowly into the machine.
Unzip your zipper, carefully line up the other edge of the fabric, and repeat for the second side. You may need to move your zipper foot over for this step.
Zip up the sewn pouch partway and with your hand, press it flat with the zipper positioned where you would like it to be on the finished pouch. You can choose to have this off center if you want. I put mine right in the middle for this pouch.
Sew the sides closed with whatever seam allowance you would like. Trim your seams.
Work the zipper all the way open and flip your pouch inside out, being careful to straighten the corners. A point turner comes in handy here, especially on very stiff material like this.
There you have your finished zipper pouch! The prefect thing for all the stray lip balms or coins hanging out in the bottom of your purse!
These are quick, easy, and inexpensive, so why not whip a few up for Mother's Day?
