Scrappy Mesh & Vinyl Pouches

A small vinyl pouch for virtually anything!

... or Three Projects for the Price of One

Do you have any pre-quilted scraps from non-traditional (i.e., not actual quilts) quilting projects? Here's what you can make with them.

When I showed you the last remaining remnant from my quilted accordion pouch project, it was the final bit left over after making my Out & About Crossbody Bag.

The rectangular piece was roughly 3.5" x 15". On a whim, I sliced it in half and proceeded to transform it into two small pouches with mesh and vinyl front pockets.

They are useful to keep track of small things like buttons and clips. Or maybe the small tools for servicing your sewing machine.

The mesh is recycled from a discount store purchase of a drawstring laundry bag. You may have seen some of the navy mesh when I tested out my Bundled Up Bindle Bag pattern.

When I originally bought one in bright pink as well, I wondered if I would ever have a need for that colour... and yet here we are.

Two pieces, roughly 3" x 7.5" each...

The vinyl is also from my supply stash; I bought a yard of it some time ago and it has appeared on various projects, most notably this travel toiletry tote.

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With those materials accounted for, all that was left was to determine if there was still enough bias tape left over from the Best Nest Organizer Basket. I did some quick measuring and discovered that I probably had just enough.

One with a mesh top, one with vinyl...

For closures, I used a couple of super adhesive hook and loop tape circles that were originally from a dollar store. (As it turns out, the adhesive does not hold very well on the mesh product; I resolved that problem with a carefully placed dab of hot glue.)

Close up of the mesh and velcro closure...

After removing the drawstring from the laundry bag, I decided to use the original drawstring channel as the top of the pocket, thus avoiding having to run some bias tape around the top edge like I had to do with the piece of vinyl.

Cutting and prepping the mesh and vinyl pocket pieces...

Clips were my friends here, to keep those small pieces of mesh and vinyl in place as I prepared to attach the bias tape all the way around.

Wrapping the bias tape all around the perimeter, using a technique to produce perfectly mitred corners...

Making the Out & About bag and now these pouches has taught me how to turn mitred corners with double fold bias tape. It had been a complex mystery to me before, but now it's second nature. (I won't bother describing how I did it, since there are numerous resources online that will show you much better than I could.)

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Watch live classes for FREE at CreativeLive! [affiliate link]

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Halfway through, I realized that since this is more or less only a single layer of a quilt sandwich, I should modify my seam allowance. Instead of 3/8", I went with a 1/2" on the second pouch, and the binding turned out much nicer.

I literally had just enough binding to finish this pouch!

If I were to make these again, I would probably round off the corners of the flap. After all, this was bias tape and would have performed quite well on curves.

But I was crafting on the fly again, running with an idea that was fresh on my mind. (And — to give credit for where the idea germinated — it occurred to me after seeing another of Caroline's projects at SewCanShe. She had made some zippered pouches using mesh and vinyl.)

See the difference in how the binding looks on the two flaps?

These little pouches did not cost me anything more than my time to make. Everything that I used was "left over" or already in my possession. That's always a great feeling.

An even better feeling came from the realization that I had used up virtually all of that "wow, that's a lot of wasted material" from the quilted accordion pouch. Hugely satisfying.

What's left now? This little square.

My final remnant...

I'm okay with that so, yeah, I'm done. ;-)