Essentials Pouch

My neck and shoulders get tired of carrying the weight of my purse, so I've used my little jewelry pouch quite a bit to carry essential items like IDs, credit cards, cash, and keys when possible.  You may have noticed one essential item is missing from that list... my cell phone!  At the time I sewed this pouch, I intended it to be a pouch to hold jewelry I'd take off after work and put in my purse while I worked out.  I also didn't rely on my cell phone so heavily then and was comfortable leaving it at home on occasion.  I hate to admit it, but it has now become an essential item -- one that I hate going anywhere without and one that doesn't currently fit into my jewelry pouch.  This meant I had a new sewing project.

I discovered scraps of a cute, yellow, striped fabric (recognize it from this tote bag?) and found I had enough to make an essentials pouch.  They were actually scraps from a failed lunch bag attempt, so they were already padded with light batting.

It's been a while since I've made a zippered pouch, so I had to refresh my memory before I started.  I remembered a mental note to sew the lining onto the zipper first so that I could hide the stitches later when I attach the outer fabric.  It had been a while since I've sewn a zipper, and for some reason I love using my zipper foot.  It was a good time.

Next, I attached the outer fabric and overstitched from the top through the zipper and lining.  So far so good...

Or so I thought.  This is where I made the mistake of not pulling the lining away from the zipper enough so that some of it got caught too close to the zipper.  But I didn't find that out until I was done, and I don't feel like taking everything apart to fix it.

I really like those tabs at the end of zippers to hide the metal and to "bookend" the zipper.  I think they're really cute, so I attached some.  I don't know how you're supposed to do this, but I just sewed some doubled up pieces of fabric onto the zipper.  It looked fine at this point, but I think you can already tell that there's not much room for a seam on both sides.  If I had left 1/2" more on either end, I think this would've worked out well.

One of my favorite parts of a sewing project is the reveal of the finished product.  For these zippered pouches, it's kind of like delivering a baby because you pull everything right side out through a hole you leave unstitched in the lining and...

Voila!  Out comes the finished product, although with lots of room for improvement.  The finished bag turned out a bit smaller than I intended because I didn't leave enough seam allowance.  In addition to my cell phone, I was hoping this bag would also fit some cards, cash, and sunglasses.  It does actually fit all of these things, but it's quite snug.  Plus, because of the lack of seam allowance, my attempts to add the cute zipper tabs didn't quite work out as intended and added unnecessary bulk.  Still, it's very functional and has a handy carrying strap, which my jewelry pouch lacks.  I think this will serve its purpose for now, but I'd like to craft a more polished bag with all of the cute finishes.