If you’re new to my 52 zippers project, you can read the backstory, see all the zipper pouches, and download basic zipper pouch instructions here.

So I’ve already made the Creative Maker case by Sew Sweetness in “small” and “medium” sizes. It was time to make the large! I made one large case for each of my three kids for travel.

The large size of these seemed considerably floppier than the smaller cases after being cut out and I was worried that the front and back fabrics would puff away from the foam and look ugly. So, I quilted the outer panels. For the boys’ cases I just straight line quilted: one with a cross-hatch, and one with straight lines accented by a red line made with 12-wt. wool Aurifil I got as a freebie at some point. I love how the red lines are so bold and I have plans to do more quilting with 12-wt. thread.

For my daughter’s case I had a little fun free-motion quilting around all the motifs in this Tula Pink print. It turned out better than I was expecting, though all the quilting shrunk the cover a bit so hers is shorter than the boys’ cases by about 5/8″. Oops!

The inside left side of the case I sewed basically as written in the pattern, but I switched it up a bit for the right side. While I enjoy all my markers being in rainbow order in elastic loops in my version of the case, realistically my kids are never going to put their pencils or markers back through loops while they’re coloring. So, I just made a mesh pocket with a double-headed zipper and sewed a quick seam down the middle to divide it into two pockets. It is perfect for storing markers and colored pencils and still allows them to see which colors are where. I considered making the panel with vinyl instead of mesh but I thought that the mesh would be more durable and easier to sew.

While I skipped the Peltex cover insert for both the small and medium cases, the large definitely required it. Getting it in wasn’t nearly as difficult as I was expecting. I used fusible Peltex and fused it to the front after inserting it into the case, which smoothed it out and bonded it to the cover, giving it a very polished look.

Zipper pouch specs:

  • Exactly as written in the pattern, in the Large size for the two boys’ cases, and the Tula Pink case is about 5/8″ shorter.

See you back here next time with another zip pouch!