Annie’s Hand Embroidered Pouch

On Easter weekend, a friend of mine flew into town and we drove down to Coquille, OR, to spend the weekend with my brother and his wife, Ann. This is the third year we’ve made this trip over Easter weekend. We usually just stick around the house, with a daily trip to the ocean and a quick stop for rockfish tacos at the Edgewater in Bandon.

Annie has recently gotten into making crazy quilt blocks with hand embroidery. She had made the embroidered panel below and gave it to me. I decided immediately that I’d sew it into a pouch.

I thought about it for a few weeks, and decided that one of my blue chambrays, which I LOVE, would be nice with it.

Then I saw a video of someone sewing a pocket like this into the front of a zipper pouch, so I sat down with pen and paper and sketched out the dimensions.

I practiced on two pouches with this zipper pocket treatment first, so felt confident that I could pull this off and have it come out well with the embroidered panel.

The little woodland creature fabric is so cute! I saw it in the store and had to buy a yard. I had no idea what I would do with it. The paw print fabric is really fun too. The paws are sort of in a mandala print. A lot of fun detail and color.

Here’s the flat front of the embroidered pouch before the top zipper was sewn in.

You first sew the zipper and pocket lining to the pocket front, fold up the pocket lining and sew it to the top side of the zipper, then add the sides, then the bottom, then you add the top strip and sew the top of the pocket zipper at the same time. All seams get a quick top stitch. It all goes together so easily and nicely.

Here’s the pocket lining.

And the pouch lining.

And I just love how the zippers go in with this more structured chambray fabric.

I’m going to try some improv machine embroidery on some canvas panels. I’m also going to keep an eye out at estate and yard sales for embroidered linens to see if there’s something I could use in a pouch. I love estate sales and they almost always have some kind of embroidered linens.

I do know that hand embroidery is NOT in my future.

I’m planning on sending this to Annie for a project bag for her hand embroidery projects.