Chasing Coco

Zip pouches make simple quick gifts and are a great way to use scraps of woven fabric. I recently made several quilts for gifts and a really cute owl pillowcase, which has left me with a lot of large scraps of woven fabrics. I'm seriously in love with this owl fabric and I wanted to use up every last little piece! Sadly it's out of stock now but they still have it in other colors . Zip pouches are good scrap busters because they can be made almost any size. I have a small one, which was the first zipper I every installed (in a sewing class called "fearless zippers!") that I use when traveling to put earrings in so they don't get lost in my bag. Larger ones hold makeup or even bigger ones to hold an iPad or laptop! You can use these same directions to make a pouch of any size based on size of scraps you have and what you want to use it for. Materials needed: Strips of scraps (or scraps you can make into strips) Matching thread Zipper ( mine was 9 inches,...

This was the first jumpsuit pattern ( Simplicity 1355 view A)  I have ever made, and honestly, before this I'd only made one wearable pair of pants. I had made 2 pair of pants and 2 pair of shorts but 3 of the 4 were a disaster! Since I wasn't sure about the fitting, I did make a muslin. Which I don't like doing but seemed necessary in this case. The fabric I chose was a rayon challis. It's very soft and drapes lovely but man, it wrinkles like crazy. I had to iron it like crazy after I took it out of the dryer! The color is also fabulous, so it's worth it. Isn't it pretty? I read in some other reviews that the back was really low, too low to avoid showing your bra so I raised the back piece about an inch, starting below the seam allowance and slanting out to the end of the piece. I didn't raise it too much because you need space to fit into the jumpsuit since there is no zipper. I raised about an inch and if I made this view again, I'...