Marker or Pencil Pouch Sewing Pattern Tutorial Review
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Today’s project came from a lovely tutorial from ikatbag.
It stands up all by itself, even when it is empty!
Suggested fabrics for this pouch are a heavier weight home dec or similar fabric for the outer and then a lining fabric. The lining fabric shown in the tutorial is a ripstop nylon. I did not have any ripstop nylon and opted to use quilter’s cotton for both the outer and lining fabrics. I also considered and then ignored the suggestion of reinforcing the outer fabric with a thicker piece of fabric.
I did, however, use two pieces of fabric for the base/front wall piece. Since this is attached with bias binding, layering the two pieces together was an easy-peasy way to add a bit of strength. I did consider using a piece of denim there, but the idea of sewing through denim + double folded bias binding + three layers of quilters cottons (inner, outer and template plastic holder) + the zipper tape seemed like more fun than I was ready to handle this afternoon.
The piece that contains the template plastic is visible inside the pouch. I am not sure what the reasoning was on this. It seemed like I could have put this on the wrong side of the lining piece and it might have been less noticeable. If I make another one, I may try it that way. (And then I will probably have to come back and tell you there was a really good reason for having it the way it is!)
The original has a little pocket on the piece that is referred to in the tutorial as the base/front wall, which is the blue solid that is surrounded with white bias binding in the photo above. When the pouch is zipped, the pocket would be folded and could not contain anything substantial. I left it off. The tutorial does not have any photos that show anything in the pocket, so I am not sure about its intended use.
At one point, use of a separating zipper is suggested. What is not mentioned (or I missed it) is what size and length of zipper should be used. I did not have a separating zipper in a suitable length, so I ended up just using a non-separating zipper, which worked out fine. I believe the one I used was 14″, as the instructions called for a zipper at least 3″ longer than the opening. I left it at that length when I put the tab on the end, but I feel like it would work just as well if I had shortened it to have less extra.
My stitching on the zipper is a bit too close to the teeth near where the front wall attached and the pull gets stuck sometimes. I will be more careful next time to leave more of the zipper tape visible so the pull has more room to zoom about. If I were going to give this to one of my kids, I would probably also use a zipper with bigger teeth, though this one works.
Attaching the zipper is not difficult, getting the base/front wall piece on is much more fiddly – and annoying. I did pin the center and lined up what ends up being the top of the front wall to keep the sides even. This ended up being the most challenging part. Normally I would use wondertape on it, but I didn’t want to do that here since I wasn’t planning to wash the bag. (Wondertape washes out, and it is great to keep wiggly things in place while sewing.) There are also some small Wonder Clips out now that I think would be worth trying for this. I have this size Wonder Clips, but the new smaller mini Wonder Clips might be better for this situation.
Having the contents of the bag upright is a really nice feature, particularly if you are using this for colored pencils or markers. With a regular zip pencil bag, the color you want always seems to be at the bottom. You either have to dig through everything over and over or pull everything out and just leave things out while you are using them. This upright bag is a portable pencil cup, perfect for occupying a preschooler in a restaurant as well as a tween who wants every color available for her latest project.
This bag has 50 colored pencils in it. As you can see, there is plenty of room for more!
Head over to ikatbag for the tutorial and make your own zipped pouch! I’d love to see it when you’ve finished. Share your creations on the Runway in our forums!
Happy Sewing!
Kelly