Gifty

Thinking about what gift to make for a good friend recently just happened to coincide with the arrival of a lovely little stack of Moda Linen Mochi Dots. From there it was a simple jump to Noodlehead's Open Wide Zippered Pouch tutorial, and I just got to work.

I paired the dots with some Kaufman Essex Linen in Natural, and luckily had just stocked up on zips from the one and only zipit. I swapped colors so each pouch had a contrasting zipper.

I dug into my stash for a lining that would work with both colors and came up with one of my favorite prints from Denyse Schmidt's Sugar Creek and Winding Road line.

And for those fun fussy-cut zipper tabs, I reached for a bit of Etsuko Furuya's Echino Insects. 

This pouch pattern is so clear and well-written, which makes these a really fun sew. For the record, I did use Pellon SF101 Shape-Flex, which makes the bags sturdy enough without being puffy or stiff. Noodlehead's tutorial has 3 sizes available, which I really appreciate. The blue bag I made is the large size (8.5" H x 8" W x 5" D finished) and the green is the medium (8.5" H x 8" W x 5" D).

I'm really not meaning to do a review on this pattern, but the truth is, on Giveaway Day when I asked commenters to name their favorite free online tutorial, this one was mentioned more times than anything else! So really, if you haven't tried it yet, you should, don't you think?