Cross Stitched Knitting Pouch

A few months ago I sewed my first pouch as part of my swap for the Secret Valentine Exchange. Both Lauren and I loved the colors so much that Lauren requested a similar one as part of her Easter basket goodies. We both loved the mint colored linen, and I had just enough to make one more pouch. I bought several yards of this linen a few years ago, and as soon as I had it cut, I remember thinking, "Why am I getting so much of this? I can't think of anything to make out of it.". My how things have changed though. Now that I no longer have any linen left, I want to make everything with it- skirts, tops, more pouches/bags. I do have a dress already cut out in this linen, so hopefully that project works out.

Back to the pouch though. I didn't have any of the light pink cotton left, so I went through our tub of scraps and picked out several other contenders. Out of the various choices, Lauren selected this aqua and black dots fabric for the inside.

She also suggested a cross stitch patch be sewed to the outside of the pouch. Of course she loved the patterns related to knitting, so we picked this little design from the Autumn Sampler. I thought it would be cute to personalize it a tad. Lauren has been knitting a pair of socks on ChiaoGoo circular needles. So, I changed the colors of the cross stitch pattern, making the needle cable red and the socks blue/purple, just like her actual socks in progress.

The trickiest part for me when sewing a pouch is always the zipper ends. On my last pouch I mentioned that I would try this method next time. Well, I started using this tutorial and then I just assumed I knew how to do the rest and stopped following it. Bad idea. I didn't realize the pouch fabric needed to be longer than the zipper, which created multiple problems. I ended up having to unpick the top corner seams countless times. This was the only way I could get this pouch to look decently finished. This whole project took way longer than it needed to because of this problem. I've learned my lesson, and will now follow every single step in a tutorial for now on.

Despite the setbacks, I still love this pouch. The color, the style, and the little cross stitch detail make it so fun. I hope Lauren likes it just as much as I do, otherwise I guess I'll have a new pouch!