Cathedral Window Pouch Tutorial

More on why I have been busy... A guest post over at Sew Sweetness! Sara had a week of guest post tutorials, and I got to cap off an inspiring week of tutorials with my Cathedral Window Pouch Tutorial. I'm told it's pretty unique, although really I just put a mishmash of techniques into one pouch. I'm still in love with my red riding hood pouch, and for this tute I made a three little piggies one to match!

So, you can head over to Sew Sweetness to see my tutorial, or just read below to find the same one here :)

Cathedral Window Pouch Tutorial
Yields: one 9 x 5" zip pouch

Materials:
1 - cathedral window block, as per the Spotted Stone tutorial
2 - 8x7" main linen (includes allowances for around cathedral window)
1 - 5x12" accent linen (for pintuck side)
2 - 9.5 x 5.5" canvas or home dec fabric (for interfacing)
2 - 9.5 x 5.5" lining fabric
1 - 10" or longer zipper
thread


You'll start by making this cathedral window - go over to the Spotted Stone blog for a wonderful tutorial on it. I like to pull scraps from my stash and find a good print to fussy cut an image from.



Next, cut one main linen piece into sections... 2 - 2x8" strips, then 2 - 3x4" pieces.


Trim cathedral window 1/4" from the points of the window, creating a (approx) 3.5" square window.

Piece together the linen strips around the trimmed cathedral window.


Right sides together. Sew the short sides first. Press. Trim.

Sew on the longer top and bottom edges, press, and trim the right edge to make it straight. Set aside.

Next up is the pintuck side of the pouch.

Take the whole piece of accent linen, and iron it about 1" in, along the long side of the fabric.


Sew down the ironed side very very close to the edge (use your presser foot as a guide, and sew about 1/8" from the edge)

Add a few more pintucks... you can either iron each time, or do free-form pintucks folding and using the previous tuck as a guideline.

Iron down all the pintucks so that they all fold down toward the same direction.
Cut the pintuck strip in half the short way so you end up with 2 pieces roughly 4" x 6".

With right sides facing, sew the pintuck piece to the cathedral window piece. Repeat for the back linen piece and the other pintuck piece.

Place the two pieces (the front and the back of the pouch) wrong sides facing together, and trim both pieces together to 9.5" x 5.5".


Now you'll add sew-in interfacing to stiffen up the pouch. I used canvas, you can use any type of stiffer material that you like. Canvas, home dec, interfacing, fusible fleece, old jeans... it all works.

Place the interfacing against the wrong side of your pretty pouch outer.


Sew along side of the cathedral window, close to the edge, esentially framing the cathedral window with a stitch line on all 4 sides.

Sew another line where the accent linen meets the main linen window.

It should look like this from the back:

Repeat for the back portion of the pouch (sew interfacing to the linen in the same pattern as above).

You should now have two thick pouch "outer" pieces and two pouch lining pieces, and one zipper.

Next we'll sew in the zipper. Place an outer face up (right side up), center the zipper across the top edge (zipper should be face down), and then place the pouch lining face down on top of the zipper, lining up all the top edges.

Your zipper sandwich should look like this:


Using your zipper foot, sew the sandwich together like this:

Flip right sides out, and press the outer and lining. Topstitch along the outer edge of the pouch very close to the zipper.


Repeat for the other side of the zipper (back side of pouch). You should now have something that looks like a butterfly:

For the next step, sewing your pouch edges together, make sure you unzip the zipper halfway so that you will be able to turn it right side out after sewing.


Flip outers right side together and linings right side together, like this:

Pinch the zipper edges towards the lining, like this:
Then sew around the whole pouch, using a 3/8" seam, leaving a 2-3" opening in the bottom center of the lining.


There's your opening in the lining... flip the whole contraption inside out via that hole (and the opening left in your zipper by having unzipped it halfway). Now you'll have a pouch with a lining sticking out of it. Sew the lining shut with a very small seam allowance.
Push the lining into the pouch, taking care to shove it all the way down into the corners. Zip it shut, press with a steam iron on both sides to give it the final touch.

For another reference on sewing a lined pouch together, go to my source... Noodlehead!

And you're done! Enjoy your new zakka style pouch, or give it to your favorite school age kid as a pencil pouch. Or use it as a makeup pouch. Or a travel zip pouch. The possibilities are endless, and super cute.