When I left off on Tuesday, the zipper had just been imperfectly installed into the fabric.
Let me take a moment to say that this pattern wasn't quite beginner because the designer left off a few pertinent pieces of information. For example, at no place in the pattern does she tell me to trim the zipper tab to the width of the zipper.
Oh, there a pictures that appear that it's been trimmed, but I had no idea. I had to search YouTube to find another pouch video and hear that person say trim the zipper tab. There are some assumptions made that the sewist would have some idea what to do without explicit instructions. Not this sewist.
The little flowers on the left side of the picture is the lining fabric.
With the zipper in, I followed the instructions to sew the cutouts together. Again, the instructions weren't clear for me, but the pictures were good enough that I was able to piece together what I needed to do.
Things are going much better. And then I hit the part for the handle. My handle doesn't look like the pictures. Then I see the note: See Appendix A for handle instructions.
It involved ironing little folds into little pieces of fabric. I used steam. I burned my left hand with said steam. I also cut my right index finger on a staple (I had packages of never-opened sewing supplies) and bled badly enough to need a bandage. Three days later, it still hurts.
The handle actually ended up being easy once I recovered from the steam incident and then I had to sew around the bag. The side seams with that fusible foam were thick and the sewing machine foot didn't want to go over the lump. I forced it up and over. The opening I left in the lining wasn't large enough so it was an adventure turning it right side out. I also sewed a pretty lame inner seam in the lining after I had everything in the correct position.
One more story and then I'll share the finished pictures.
I still had all the other pouch material ready to go, so I prepared another zipper to make a second bag. I got fabric glue on my dining room table. I rubbed at it to get it off and it took the wood stain off! My table! ::sobs:: I need a sewing table and dedicated sewing space because my table can't take much more.
Bag two has yet to be sewn, but here's the first pouch.
No, you're not imagining it. The bag is wider on one side than the other. Maybe bag two will be better?
