Zippered Pouch

While planning a sewing day for the third grade Girl Scout Brownies, I wanted to make sure we had enough to do in the time allotted.  Also, while it is nice to make donations, I know the girls really like sewing for themselves and being able to take something home.  We didn't get to this project yet, but hope to make them in March.

I looked around for easy patterns and decided to do a less easy pattern, but that I would prepare it for them.  A zippered pouch would be a nice finished project.  This tutorial and this other one had nice instructions.  After testing out the pattern, I decided to only have the girls sew around the outside edge and make a flat bag.

Before the meeting, I emailed each parent to ask their girls' favorite color. Fat quarters were on sale and even though the material isn't very thick, the lining should add some thickness and be ok.

Zippers were ordered in bulk.  I ended up with 8" zippers.  The outside fabric and lining were cut to 10" x 4".  To save a step, I ironed down one long edge of the outside fabric and lining to be sewn to the zipper.  I did this all in one step.  I completed the bag and created instructions for the girls to finish the zippered pouch.

After sewing the zippers in, I trimmed the pouch down so that the zipper was closer to the length of the fabric.

The next step was to open the zipper halfway and then sew around the outside of the fabric right sides together and the lining right sides together, leaving a small opening in the lining bottom.  Then clip corners and flip.  Finally hand sew the small opening closed.

Update 3/2013: We were able to sew these pouches together at our March meeting. I thought it would be a very quick project because we are essentially just sewing one seam. But it took longer and was just right for them. I had instructions with photos of the steps which was helpful. Pinning took time, taking turns on the machines, then turning and finding the corners. Finally we just sewed the opening in the lining by machine. We only had three machines for this project and less than an hour allotted. There were eleven girls present. When the girls weren't working on their pouches, they either looked on, hula hooped, or worked on some coloring pages.