It's a start..!

The bags of fabric bits are oppressing me... And in spite of wanting to get going with some patchwork projects, at this time of year (busy in the garden), I haven't got time to experiment with anything too complicated. So thinking of lovely strippy quilts that I've seen on Flickr and at the V&A exhibition, I decided to just start sewing little pieces of fabric into strips and think about what to do with them later. It was lovely to sit and sew in straight lines, and not worry too much about colour and design! So once I had my strip, what to do with it? Here's what I came up with..

Yes... it's another zippered pouch...  Now I've worked out how to do this kind of zipper I can't stay away from them.  This time I've made the zip look even neater by covering the ends in this lovely tidy way.  The other thing to know about this colourful little pouch is that the lovely grey linen used to be a skirt and that sophisticated grey and white lining fabric is an ex-shirt.  I do like to recycle - it gives me a real buzz not to throw things away.... but it does, of course, mean a lot more bags of fabric.  Oh dear!

Conquered the Zipper...

I have really really struggled today to get to grips with making a lined, zippered pouch.  Most people who have a go (judging from all the tutorials that are out there) seem to struggle with the outer fabric, zip, inner fabric sandwich that you make (doesn't that sound delicious) when you are starting to assemble fabrics plus zip, but I got my head round that ok. My big problem was that after sewing round all the edges and turning the complete purse the right way,  the zipper didn't seem to sit quite right - no one goes into much detail about this bit, so I had no hints to help me on my way.  I wont go into detail because it's very hard to explain if you haven't made one of these yourself (and, errr, a bit boring!), but the good news is I finally worked out where I was going wrong..  What a relief...  So now I've mastered buttonholes and zips and I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself.  Here's the finished pouch.  I love these fabrics - the floral stuff is Geranium Leaf in Taupe (good grief taupe is a truly horrible word) by Philip Jacobs for Rowan.  Cottonpatch have this in a few colours at the moment in their bargains section at £1.85 per 1/4 metre.  The other fabric is Cotton Shot in Sludge (!!) by Kaffe Fassett - it's absolutely lovely and not at all like sludge!

Mastering the pouch was a complete distraction from the great wallet search, but I needed something to give my brain a rest (I didn't plan on struggling with the zip!).  I am hoping to make a few more of these before the weekend, using other fabrics too, to take along to Creative Open Workshops Handmade Market that I'm doing this weekend (look - there's my needle book on the poster!).  I'm really looking forward to this market, once I've got over the logistics of getting down to Birmingham.  I've had a look at the things that the other sellers make and I really have to remember NOT to take too much money with me otherwise I'll be in great danger of spending more money than I make.