Mouthy Stitches Pouch completed!

I was naughty and skipped Fencing last night because I desperately wanted to get my Mouthy Stitches swap finished. I’ve been working on this pouch on and off for a month, getting intimidated by various elements (and angry hedgehog under the sewing machine) a various stages and hiding it in my WIP drawer for a bit.

Each panel is separate and I made it up as I went along which means Y seams and yes I may have had to go back over a few of them…. The outer fabric is a tough duck canvas (which frays like you wouldn’t believe) with little patchwork squares of Kaffe Fassett fabrics- because I know my partner likes his designs, at least some of them. The zip has a little keyring pull on it which has a couple of pieces of matching fabric in too. I wish the shape was a bit more rigid, especially at the corners, but I think I would have had to use boning or buckram to fix that, and I didn’t. So it is what it is…

My pouch seemed a bit boring when there were so many other beautiful and more complex designs being completed (click here for the group pool!), but as a relative newcomer to patchwork, who has recently discovered a dislike of paper piecing and only having ever made one pouch previously, I didn’t want to push it too much. So I decided to have my first ever play with perle cotton last night and herringbone stitched around, which I think works. I must confess to having done all of the stitiching whilst propped up in bed with the radio on, a bottle of pear Rekorderlig and a half finished bag of marshmallows.

Because I put the top piece on last, I needed to cover the joins on the inside with bias tape, I am hoping my partner doesn’t look too hard at the corner where the ends meet as it’s a total dogs dinner, luckily because of how the zip is inserted, it’s not easy to see this area. Yeah, that’s how I meant it to be, honest! So it’s a bit like looking into a cave, but the lining fabirc is also Kaffe Fassett- however it is one of my favourites in my collection and I was a bit sad to have to use it! it did go nicely with the rest of the colours in the design and the purple zip though. there’s also a felt panel at the back for jamming needles and pins in- yes this is a pouch intended for sewing projects (LARGE ones at that- this bag nearly fills a shoe box!).

And of course there’s a 1/4 metre of scraps included too (and NOTHING ELSE as per the rules, though I was so tempted to put some chocolate in- sorry partner!).

I really hope she likes it- luckily my partner is a frequent commenter so she seems to like it from the picture. Fingers crossed!