Open Wide Zippered Pouch

It's January, and I really don't have much I have to sew.  I mean I never have to sew anything, but there's no special occasions, no holidays, no birthdays, or any other pressing reason to be sewing something.  Sew, when I stumbled upon Noodlehead's Open Wide Zippered Pouch tutorial that comes in 3 sizes, I thought what the heck!  I'm going to make all three just because I can.

I have no real idea what I'm going to use these for.  I mean I know I'll probably use them when I travel, and maybe one will end up with all my make-up in it, and I'm sure my kids stuff will be put in one or more of these at some point in time.  But, really I just wanted to own three pretty bags.

Pretty bags that all fit inside each other.

For Christmas my sister-in-law, Blue Susan, generously got me a signed copy of Anna Maria's Needleworks Notebook AND 2 Jennifer Paganelli fat quarters.  I'm not sure I'm going to pick up needlework, but the projects in Anna Maria's book look like they want to come and be a part of my house, so who knows.  As for the fat quarters, I put them to good use in these nesting bags.  Can you tell which two are from the same designer??  The medium and large bags' floral fabric are Jennifer Paganelli.  The small bag's floral fabric is a Sandi Henderson fabric that I found last time I was at Michael Levine's in LA.

The Noodlehead tutorial, as always, was a good one.  Do be careful and read the directions carefully when it comes to the zippers if you make these.  It's a little tricky.  Not pictured in this blog post is my sample pouch where I learned the hard way that I hadn't followed Anna from Noodlehead's directions correctly.  Read carefully!

Also, as a hot tip, I went ahead and made freezer paper patterns for all the different size pouches.  It's 3 rectangles per bag.  All the pattern pieces took me about 30 minutes to measure, draw, and cut out.  I think this step is worth it should I ever want to make this pouch again.

Now to figure out how I'm going to use these beauties.  They might just need to sit on display in my house for a while before I actually put them to use.

For the sewing schedule tonight I'm suppose to be tracing out another Hannah Dress.  It's only 8, so I have plenty of time to do this, but I'm feeling so tired.  Hopefully I forge ahead despite my exhaustion.  I'm tired of being tired all the time!  (I know this probably means I should go to bed earlier, but there is no fun in that, so I'm not even considering it as an option.)