Happy Little Pouch Hop {Challenge} - Week 1

As I'd mentioned before, Elaine and I decided to challenge each other to make one pouch a day during each weekday of the swap. I failed the challenge on Weds - I wan't feeling very well and just went to bed early. I guess we all have days like that. To make up for it I was a machine last night!

Last night I decided to tackle our pouch from weds (which is a bow clutch that I've been meaning to make for my mom for ages!), as well as the Samosa pouch for Thursday. Knowing that it was going to take a bit of time to do both - I cut and prepped the fabrics in the afternoon while Allie was watching a movie. (I typically don't do any sewing related stuff while she's awake & at home). I decided to cut the fabrics for the Triple Zip pouch too (Friday's challenge).

As it turns out that bow clutch is really super fast the ... 8th time you've made one!

The Samosa pouch came together very quickly too - I had some troubles with the zippered tabs being too thin (my feed dogs wouldn't make the jump from the thin to the thickness of the zipper area)... so that was a little hangup... similarly I had some issues with the top end of the zipper - I think I was overthinking it or something, but I'd do it my normal way next time. Before making the Samosa pouch I was having trouble visualizing how it was sewn together to make it a triangle... it turns out reading the directions with the partially sewn pouch in front of you helps an awful lot! In the end it was quick and adorable. I started with 4 1/2" squares of fabric though instead of the slightly larger fabric it called for... mostly because I wanted to use that hot pink stripe and that was all I had of it!

Next I figured I would prep the zippers for the Triple Zip pouch - without realizing I'd end up finishing it entirely before I realized how far I'd gotten! Again, this pouch is really not hard to make - it's a lot of steps but doing the separate pockets repetitively really ingrains the process into your mind. I'm happy to say that I really understand how to add a pocket to the front of a pouch now! Don't be intimidated by this pouch - it's really not hard, just a lot of steps! (Again with the zipper issues on the top zip - I think I just have it in my mind what works for me - Next time I'll do the top zip the way I usually do mine.)

Finally today I worked on Jeni's Drawstring Pouch - which is so adorable and really really easy to make! I can't believe it took me this long to make one! For mine I used some scraps pieced together for the main part of the pouch - I could have placed that friendship star a little better - but I'm pretty sure Allie won't mind. I only strayed from the tutorial by cutting squares on the corners to box them (rather than the folded / diagonal method she used). I added a couple cute little prairie points to the inside (I found them already folded, in the scrap bin). These prairie points are quickly becoming one of my "things".

Overall I think it was a really fun first week of the blog hop - and I'm super excited about knocking out some Christmas sewing with all these pouches too! I hope you'll sew along with us - remember to enter your finished pouches to the flickr group discussion for this week - we'll be drawing for prizes later this weekend!