Pattern Review: Zippered Card Pouch

I'm going to try something a bit different this week...there've been several patterns/tutorials that I've been eyeballing but I still want to share with all of you, so I'm just going to post photos of my finished product and a brief review of the tutorial.  

So I'll start off with this little Zippered Card Pouch from Craft Passion.  I'd been staying away from curved zippers because I felt my grasp of regular zippers wasn't quite good enough to handle the curve, but I suppose I've been getting bored with sewing zippers in a straight line and I wanted something to sort of challenge me.  And yes I did regret saying that in another curved zipper project I will post later this week.   But this little guy was actually much easier than I thought.   

I wouldn't recommend skipping any steps when sewing the zipper...the tutorial has an advanced sewer's shortcut which is basically sewing the lining, main fabric, and zipper together all at the same time, which is what I usually do.  But because of the curve, I would recommend doing the lining first then the main fabric like the tutorial explains.  I mean it's a really small zipper anyway so it's not much extra work, and it's way less work than having to rip out your stitches later if something goes wrong...and you know it will as soon as you get at all confident about zippers...

The tutorial calls for ribbon for the inner card divider but I didn't have any so I just used some of the twill fabric I used for the outside.  It turned out okay, but I wouldn't recommend anything heavier than regular cotton because the twill became really bulky on mine.

I did use some lightweight interfacing which I think may or may not have been necessary, I mean if you're using plain cotton on the outside definitely use interfacing, but you're using something like twill (like I did) or something heavier like canvas (like the tutorial used) you don't need it.

This was also the first time I ever made a little side gusset, which was kind of cool.  I never would've thought of sewing on the fold to make it fold inward, something to file away for later use...

Also, when I was sewing the interior and adding the bias tape, I made the corner opposite the zipper have a slight rounded edge which I think was a mistake.  Because of the bulk from the bias tape it made the corner look really weird, not quite square-ish?  I need to try it again with a sharper corner on the inside and see if makes a difference.


So if you're pretty comfortable with zippers, or even if you're not, you should check out this tutorial!!  The instructions and photos are really clear and make the whole process pretty simple.  Well actually the photos are really confusing at first, but once you get started it'll make sense.  And it's a good way to use up larger pieces of scrap fabric!  

Good luck and happy crafting!!

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