In 2017 I have a few lofty goals. One of the bigger ones is to undertake a project I’m calling “52 zippers”: this year, every week I will sew a new zipper pouch and post about it. I have kind of the perfect storm of reasons for doing this–I have too many zippers, too many cute fabrics that I’m not using because I don’t want to cut them up, lots of fabric embellishment ideas that I want to try out but not on a whole quilt, and of course a lack of organization.

My other thought is that while I know many people have mastered zipper pouches, I think it is a common thing to fear the zipper. I’ve written up a set of basic lined zipper pouch instructions, which you can download for free! As the year goes on I will be adding more modifications and techniques to add to the simple zipper pouch. Look for more handouts to come! These handouts will be free for a limited time; at the end of the project I’ll be compiling all of the handouts into a comprehensive zipper pouch pattern.

I’m going to start out the year with the simplest pouches and get more complex as the weeks move on. My handouts, plus any measurements, modifications, or tips I give in future posts will be enough for you to create or recreate any zipper pouch you please!

To start off the project, my first zipper pouch is about as easy as they come with no exposed/raw seams. My 8-year old son is very into magic tricks lately and  I wanted to make him a little zip pouch to store his main deck of cards so they stop being spread all over his desk.

He had a lot of fun digging through my stash and picking out fabrics! He chose a red-orange plaid that was from a thrifted men’s shirt and a tiny orange houndstooth from Jennifer Sampou’s Studio Stash line. He also chose a 6″ dark red zipper, which looks great with the fabrics!

The sizes of the pieces I used for this pouch are as follows:

• Outer pieces: 6.75″ w x 4.5″ h
• Lining pieces: 6.75″ w x 4.5″ h
• Zipper tabs: 1.5″ x 2″
• Zipper length (cut):  5.5″

I used no interfacing on this pouch.

See you back here next week for the next zipper!

P.S. I get my zippers online from Zipit on Etsy. I order 14″ zippers, which are not much more expensive than the short ones, and trim them to the size I need. She also sells extra zipper pulls, so if you cut off more than a few inches of zipper, save it and add a new pull and you’ve got another zipper!