Tutorial: Multipurpose Pouch

I have received quite a number of enquiries and orders for this multipurpose pouch which I have done for the craft fair. I thought some of you might be interested in the making of it.. so I gathered some photos I took while making it and compiled it into a.. tutorial.. actually I would not want to call it a tutorial because I feel that it is not very well documented. Nevertheless it shows the process of making and it is not very difficult, so hopefully by looking at the photos you will get the idea how it can be done and maybe can try sewing one by yourself :)

So this is it, the finished product. The sewing pattern is inspired by a stationery pouch by Xiao Bai, a super talented handmade artist from Taiwan, she's my idol in sewing pouches!

First of course you pick the fabrics that you like and will go well with each other.

Then, cut the fabric! The white colour stuff is called.. stabilizer/fleece/interfacing.. I am still not very sure about the name >.< but anyway it is super important and I use it in all my handmade projects. It comes in different thickness and one adhesive side which can be ironed on to your fabric. This wonderful product will raise the finished quality level of your work to look very crisp and professional. Can be found in Spotlight!

Here are the measurements for different components inside the pouch. For the smaller cuts of fabrics you can just cut the fleece same size as the fabric. For the card holder we actually need 3 pieces of fabrics and 2 pieces of fleece, all of the same size. 

Pen/pencil holder, you do not need a fleece for this because you will need to sew them into folds later and it will be very difficult to work with if the whole thing is too thick.

 Iron the fleece onto the fabric. Immediately the fabric will look very smooth and crisp.

 Other things you might need to add in the details in the finishing product..

 Fix the button and you can leave this outer fabric aside first.

Making the middle pocket. On the left is the cover, right side is the bottom pocket. The cover will protect the things from dropping out from the pocket in case you hold the pouch upside down.

 Finished piece of card holder.

Finished piece of pen holder. Basically for all these small pockets you just need to sew 3/4 round of it and turn it inside out.

Fix everything in place and place the outer fabric on top (wrong side facing you) then sew around it. I will usually sew 1cm away from the edge of the fabric. Leave a small opening and turn the whole piece inside out. Later you can use mattress stitch to close the opening.. and.. it's done!

I love making this because it only requires very basic sewing techniques. You just need to cut to the right size and place everything at the right position. I hope this can give you the idea of how the pouch is being made and perhaps inspire some of you to try sewing it yourself :) I know my instructions given here are not very clear, because I did not intend to do a tutorial on this while I was documenting the process. If you have any questions can email me and let me know :)