#needleworkmonday :: Little drawstring pouch with lining

Christmas is drawing near and I wanted to make little drawstring pouches to put little gifts in them instead of wrapping them in nice paper and boxes which would eventually be ripped apart without mercy and then crumpled later to be dumped into the recycling bin :P.

And so it was time again for me to go to my favourite video source and browsed around. I found this easy pattern to follow by Keiko Olsson:


I especially like tutorials without much talking :D

I chose to make a smaller pouch first to give this pattern a try.
I prepared 2 pieces of fabric, a light yellow lining fabric with an outer festive red patterned fabric, both measured at 14cm by 5cm:



Both the fabric pieces were folded into half, marked and sewed according to the video from 0:33 seconds until 1:45 for the outer layer fabric and 1:46 until 2:25 for the lining:

I decided to sew the edges too for a neater finish using the overcast stitch:



Then it was time to press the seams flat:



After turning the outer layer inside out, I inserted it into the lining, referring to 3:09 of the tutorial video:



After pinning both layers together, aligning the side stitches, it was time to sew them together, referring to 3:23 of the tutorial video:





At the lining, there was still an opening for magic to happen (I like how just through an opening, the pouch with lining neatly appears, just like magic!), referring to 5:05 of the tutorial video:


Once both the layers were magically pulled inside out through the lining's opening, it was time to press again:



Sew near the edge to close the lining opening:



Slowly tuck in the lining into the outer layer fabric:



Press the edges of the pouch:



The lining and the outer layers after the iron press:



Here is the string insert, I like that it looks quite nice and neat:



I top-stitched on both sides of the pouch where the strings will be inserted. The top-stitch will make sure that string is guided through instead of going all over the place between the two layers - 7:00 minutes into the tutorial video:


It was a little trickier to stitch a smaller pouch. It took a bit of maneuvering on the sewing machine.

Then, it was time to insert the strings. Each string was inserted in full circle through both sides of the pouch - 8:53 of the tutorial video:

Here is how it looks in the inside:



I like how all the stitches are nicely hidden between the lining and the outer layer.

~ ~ ~ 🧵🧶💗🧶🧵 ~ ~ ~

It was pretty easy to sew and I am going to sew a few more sizes to fit the Christmas presents that I will be making :)