Zakka Along Week 17 :: Delightful Linen Pouch

This week's Zakka project was an easy and quick little bag designed by Erleperle. Sukie, who happens to be one of the hosts of the Zakka sew-along, shared her version, and I was so impressed that it prompted her to try embroidery for the first time! Awesome!

I decided to go with more of a patchy, machine-stitched version. Not having the suggested interfacing on hand, and not understanding why it couldn't be fusible, I went ahead and used some of what I had - some feather-weight fusible. It seems to have worked fine, and really, next time I'd interface the front and back fabrics as well.

As Sukie says, the front is really a blank canvas, so the possibilities are endless. For my pouch, I densely stitched a square of lime Essex Linen onto the natural Essex front, using some organic straight-line. Then I just stitched around the square a couple of times, basically achieving some raw-edge appliqué of sorts. With the floral square, I continued with the raw-edge look, just stitching close to the edges a few times.

The pouch was simply constructed, though there was no way I was able to press my seams open, so curious how others did with this. And I ended up trimming about 1/8-1/4" off the top of the lining so it would sit down in the main bag smoothly. That might have been due to my seams being non-pressed, but it worked fine in the finished project.

My main disappointment over this finish is that I used more of the lovely floral for the lining, but it is basically hidden from view, the bag is so small. But I know it's in there, and it looks great! haha.

After rummaging through my Grandma's button tin, nothing seemed quite right, so I changed things up and added some natural twill tape ties instead.

I think this little pouch would make a perfect little gift bag. Wouldn't it look just as delightful with some actual patchwork on the front? I can definitely see myself stitching up this pattern again!

Linking up with LRstitched and T.N.T. Thursday.