A simple zipper pouch in pretty butterfly fabric

Sometimes a collection of fabric arrives and I just have to make something! I didn't have much spare time yesterday between workshops but I was determined to sew this purse which only took about half an hour in total to make.

First I cut the fabric pieces

there are two butterfly fabric pieces 11" by 6.5"

and two pink fabric pieces 11"by 3.5"

later you will need two pieces of fabric for the lining which are 11" by 9.5"

and of course a zip

I stitched the butterfly fabric to the pink fabric using my new quarter inch foot (a great new gadget - I have no idea why I didn't get one before now!) Then I anchored the fabric panel to a piece of wadding with a line of stitching just below the join to add detail. Repeat for the other side.

I trimmed the pieces down so that the wadding was the same size as the fabric (there are two identical pieces at this point)

I referred to a great tutorial by Melly Sews on how to sew in a zip (there is a link to this tutorial later in this post)

attaching both outer pieces and the lining pieces

Finally there is a line of stitching around the outer and lining pieces (with that all important gap to pull it all through) to sew the whole purse together and you are done!

You can find the tutorial by Melly Sews here my purse dimensions are different and of course I used wadding to pad it out but it is useful to show you how to sew in the zip

I used a fabrics from the Whisper collection by Windham Fabrics which you can buy in my online shop.

Enjoy!

Ali