FAL Finish: Pouch For Sewing Machine Bits And Bobs

Before I start, I want to say thank you for all your lovely comments on my last post - I really appreciate them. I'm sorry I haven't replied to most of them yet, I've just been too tired to do much other than sleep or sit on the settee and watch easy telly, but I will reply at some point this week.

When I was writing my current FAL list, I realised I'd never got round to making a small pouch for all my sewing machine bits and bobs - machine oil, screwdrivers, extra feet, etc.  I decided to use the fabric which was leftover from making my trug and some other things which have yet to be blogged about (they're making their début later in this post!).  I didn't have much of this fabric left but I knew I'd be able to get a small Lola pouch out of them with little difficulty.

When it came to it, I decided to make the large version as it meant I could fit in my walking foot box and it would be much handier to have everything in one place.  I didn't have enough fabric to make an un-pieced pouch, so I decided to make an un-pieced and pieced side, for both the lining and the outside.  I also decided to see if I could work out a way to include the two pandas which were on the outer fabric but when I took this photo, I hadn't quite decided how to do it:

As I was using an orange zip, I decided to introduce a bit of orange to both the binding (no photo) and the lining, to tie the colours together.  You may wonder why I didn't use a pink zip, to go with the background of the pandas and the answer's simple: I didn't have one!

I decided to add the pandas as little 'tabs' either side of the accent strip on one side of the pouch and was going to leave them free on three sides but I didn't like how they laid on the pouch, so they got stitched down while I was quilting.  Here are the two outer pieces ready for quilting - you can just see the two lines marked with a hera marker on the unpieced side.  What you can't see is that I had to sew pieces of fusible wadding together as I didn't have enough of that, either!  You'll also notice that I've labelled the bottom of the pieced side: if I'd accidentally turned up upside down then one of those pandas would have been on the base of the pouch, not the look I was going for!

I quilted (in bright pink) down the edge of the turquoise strip (three lines each side, about 1/16" apart) and then in turquoise and bright pink on the other side; I thought it would be too plain without something and then I remembered the pouch Susan made and, er, copied!  The width of the quilting is the same as the width of the contrast strip on the other side (and on the lining) but I deliberately made it so that they wouldn't line up when viewed from above, just in case I didn't get them lined up exactly!

I stitched down the binding using two lines (one pink, one orange) of a fairly large running stitch in perle 12, rather than my usual (invisible) appliqué stitch and rather like the result.

My aim this quarter was to blog about finishes as they happened, rather than playing catch-up at the end of the quarter.  I haven't quite managed that yet as I finished this pouch in the middle of January, and I have another couple of small finishes to share, too.  They'll have to wait their turn, though!  Must try harder.

As well as linking up at the end of the quarter, I'm also linking up with Scraptastic Tuesday, as the pouch was made with fabric and wadding scraps.

I mentioned that this pouch was made with the leftovers from some other projects, but that I'd only blogged about the trug.  This is everything I've made so far, isn't it surprising how far a yard of main fabric and a metre of lining fabric will go?!  I don't usually go for matchy-matchy, but I think I like how this all co-ordinates.

So far, I've made a trug, a large pouch, a needle book (for my machine needles), a pouch for my rotary cutter and a holder for my large fabric scissors.  I still have these bits left, I wonder what I can cobble together out of this?!!

It was Archie's birthday last week and so, for a treat, he got two pieces of his hedgehog treat instead of one:

Ohhh, two pieces!  What's the betting that it's really one piece cut in two to make it look like more?!

Can I eat them yet?  Any chance I'm also allowed to eat the head?  No, not yet.

Thanks for popping in!