Someone asked me recently how I make change purses so I thought I would update this tutorial. Here it is!

 For many years I lived in fear of the dreaded zipper, but then I made friends with my zipper foot! Making a lined zippered pouch is pretty easy; once you understand how the pieces go together you can whip these babies out like nobody’s business.

Materials:

-fabric
-zipper
-thread
-scissors
-interfacing (optional)
-zipper foot!

Directions:

1. Cut 2 pieces of fabric for your lining and 2 pieces for the outside of your pouch. These ones are cut 8 x 10 inches. At this point you can iron on interfacing if you choose, I like to do this because it adds a nice structure to the pouch.

2. Put one of the outside pieces GOOD SIDE UP and place the zipper along the top edge WRONG SIDE UP. In this example I used a 9 inch zipper.

3. Take one of the lining pieces and put that on top of the zipper WRONG SIDE UP. You have now made a zipper sandwich.

4. At this point double check just to make sure both good sides are facing in and pin the sandwich together.

5. Put your zipper foot on and sew along the zipper. The zipper foot allows you to sew super close to the zipper.

6. It should now look like this:

7. Repeat steps 2-6 on the other side of the zipper. Now it should look like this: 

8. Press the seams open along the zipper.

9. VERY IMPORTANT——-> Open the zipper! Once the zipper is open fold it so that the lining pieces are together and the outside pieces are together, pin all around the outside.

10. Sew all the way around the outsides leaving an opening in the lining. This pouch is pretty big so I left about 4 inches open, the opening has to be big enough to stuff the whole thing through it. Be sure to use only about a 1/4 inch seam allowance on the sides of the pouch, that way you wont run over the zipper and break your needle. 11. I like to clip the corners like so, it helps make them nice and square when you turn it right side out. 12.  Now you have to stuff everything through the hole you left in the lining. After it’s turned right side out it’s time to stitch up the turning hole, I stitch it closed by hand using a hidden stitch so it wont be visible. You will end up with something like this:13. Poke out the corners (I use a knitting needle) and stuff the lining down into the outside of the pouch.14. Press the seams and it’s all done. Yay!This method can be used to make any size of pouch you want, generally, you want the pouch to be about 1″ wider than the zipper is long so that your seam allowances on each side take up the difference and your zipper spans the entire top of the pouch. For example, this pouch was cut at 10 inches across the top so I used a 9″ zipper. With about a 1/4 inch seam allowance the zipper is the perfect length.