Transcription
Hey guys, it's Robin R. Silent Crafts, and welcome to my craft room. In this video today, I'm going to show you how to put what I've been calling an offset zipper.
Normally, when you make a zipper pouch, you'll have your zipper right across the top. But today, I'm going to show you how to make it so it's just a little bit down, like this. A little about an inch or so down from the top. Have your zipper a little bit down from the top like this.
It's really easy to go ahead and to put things into your pouch like this. It's great for kids to put matchbox cars with crayons, pens, pencils. You can use it as a makeup pouch. You can put your cell phone in it. Anything you want to use a pouch for. If you want to store your clean or dirty masks in here, you can go ahead and do that. And it's just nice and easy. For some reason, it just seems to be easier for some of the kids to zip it this way than it is for them to zip across the top.
This version does have the exposed seams in it. They're really tiny. We're going to show you how to either use a serger or what I'm going to do is an overcast stitch just to tighten up that area and make it look nice and neat. Most times, if you open up your pouch, you don't really notice those seams on the side. They're all the way over on the edge. You can fill this up with your hairbrush and whatever else you might need. But if you want to have those seams covered up nice and neat, come back next Friday, and I'll show you a separate video to show you how to cover that up nicely. But for today, we're going to go ahead and make one of these pouches.
The supplies for these pouches is going to be really simple. You need an outer fabric, something that might be a fun and crazy, or you can use something mild and calm. And then a lining fabric. I chose a white one with some little swirls on it. And then, of course, this fun print here. I've also gone ahead and fused some interfacing or stabilizer to the back. For these, I am using a lightweight one. I like to use Pellon P44F, that's what I'm using for these. This is going to give me a nice and flexible pouch.
Both of these pouches, I used a medium-weight interfacing for it. And for these, I used Pellon 931 TD. It's still a fusible interfacing, and it just gives you, see, it just has a little bit more structure. It's still soft and flexible, and it's not firm. But this one is definitely very loose. It's just enough to give it some structure without being overboard. So you can use any type of interfacing you want. If you're using more of a, you can use denim or corduroy or an outdoor fabric. If you're using something that's a little sturdier, maybe a denim or corduroy or some type of an outdoor fabric, you might not even need to use any type of interfacing. It's totally up to you.
The way we're going to make this pouch, you can also use some pre-quilted fabric. I have a little example here. This one is quilted all pretty with swirls, and it's quilted all the way through. And both pieces, they have a little bit of batting on the inside, and these are all connected with that quilting. So you can use the same thing. Whether you use the same fabric on the lining or you use different fabrics, you can purchase from Joann's and online and stuff, pre-quilted fabric, or you can go ahead and make your own.
You're also going to need a zipper for this one. I am using a nylon zipper, the same that I used for the other pouches. I really like to use the nylon zippers because it's easy to cut through the zipper. If you have a little extra left over, you don't have to worry about your sewing machine as much as a metal zipper. This one, you can sew over the teeth. You still have to be careful, but it's not as bad and dangerous as doing it over a metal zipper.
This pouch, I decided that I'm going to cut mine. It is 12 and a half inches tall and 11 inches wide. You can use any size you want. As you see, I have made various size pouches, so you can go ahead and make them any size to fit your needs. If you've been with me for a while, you know I like to use zippers that are larger than the bag, so that there is excess going off on each end. Or if you choose, you can use an exact size zipper. If you want to use a zipper that's exactly the size of the pouch, you want to make sure that your zipper is from tape end to tape end, from the whole thing, it measures the width of the pouch. So if you already have some zippers at home and you just want to go ahead and make a pouch, grab your zipper and cut two pieces of fabric that are the exact width of your pouch.
Now, when we sew this, we're going to be sewing it like this and have it go that way. So whatever size you want your pouch to be, if you want your pouch to be six inches tall, cut your fabric 12 and a half inches. That's going to double it and add in a little extra for seam allowances. So I have my outer fabric and my lining fabric, both are cut the exact same size. I am using a zipper that is wider. I have added some lightweight fusible interfacing to both of these. I like to do it on both pieces, especially if I'm using the lightweight. It gives it that little extra, and this allows the lining to just sit nicely within the pouch. That extra stabilizer and interfacing, it gives it that little bit of weight to hold it in there so it's not all floppy and stuff like that.
So the first thing we want to do is we want to make sure both of our fabrics are right sides together, and you want to line them up so they match. You want to make sure that you don't have them off at all like this. Now, I'm going to just take mine over to the sewing machine, but if you want, you can go ahead and put some pins or some clips into it just to hold it all into place. I'm just going to go ahead and use my regular sewing foot, and when I stitch these together, I'm going to stitch them a quarter inch seam allowance. You can go ahead and use a little bit of a larger one if you're more comfortable with that. And what I want to do is I want to stitch at the top and the bottom of this. So my pouch is going to sit like this. So I will do my stitching at the top and the bottom. Remember, both pieces are right sides together. Just make sure everything is lined up neatly. If it's uneven and you have any pieces the way you cut it, if there's like your lining is sticking out a little bit, you want to go ahead and trim that down. You don't want to have extra sticking out. You need both of these pieces to be exactly the same size. So I'm going to take it over to the sewing machine and I'm going to stitch the bottom and the top. I'll be right back.
So I have it stitched. Everything on one end, I stitched them both together, quarter inch seam allowance. And on the other end, we're going to give it a good press. So what I want to do is I want to just go ahead and put my hand in. I'm going to pull this and I'm going to turn it so I have both right sides out. Roll it up. So what I want to do is I want to have it so that it's even along the top. You just roll it with my fingers to make sure that lining is not popping out. Give it a nice little steam press to hold it in place. And I can do the same on this side. Give it a nice press.
Now, you have to decide which way is the top and which way is the bottom of this pouch. If you want, you can just go ahead and fold it like this and just kind of give a bit of a look to see what you like. Maybe you like that to be there. Maybe if I want to go this way. This type of technique might not be good for directional fabrics. So if you have a bunch of bunnies on here or something, because when you flip this around, since we are not seaming at all, the bunnies are going to be going right one way, and then they're going to be going upside down the other way. So I'm going to go ahead and put mine this way.
So I'm using, as I said, the zipper that is going to be longer than the pouch that I'm going to make. It's going to make it a lot easier to go ahead and stitch this zipper in. You can, of course, do it with it being exactly the same size or with a metal zipper. I just find that this is a lot easier for me to do it this way. So you can start with either end you want. I'm just going to go ahead and start with the bottom one. So when I go put my zipper on, I want to line this up with the lining side facing. My zipper teeth are facing up. So when I go to line this up, I have my zipper laying down, the zipper teeth are facing up. This is just the way you would go ahead and zip your zipper. So it's right sides up, and I'm going to take the lining and I'm going to lay it down on the zipper tape.
Now, you can go ahead and pin this or you can clip it. If you're going to pin it, it'd be really easy to pin as is. To clip it, I find it's easier to open the zipper up that way I can get my clips in there nice and easy. I'm just going to stay away from the two ends. So I'm going to average it out in the middle. This way, with this size zipper, I don't need to be exactly perfect. Just add a few clips there. You can put as many as you need. I find for this technique, I only really need to put one on each end and then one in the middle because I can adjust it as I'm sewing it at the sewing machine. Okay, so everything's all clipped. Let me take you over to the sewing machine and show you how easy it is to stitch this.
Now, depending on how your machine is set up and how it works, I can only adjust my needle a little bit. So I'm going to use a zipper foot for this one. So I'm going to trade out my regular foot for the zipper foot. I've added extra. I'll just fold it up out of the way. I'm going to slide this clip down a little bit. Since I have so much extra zipper tape, I'll start off of the zipper and off of the bag, just so any little thread messes are going to end up not on my bag. Then I can just pull on this tape and pull it in and out and adjust it. If you have it all pinned nice and neat, you don't have to worry about that. But I'm just going to adjust as I go. So I just a little smidge of the tape, and the teeth aren't going right up against the fabric. Since my zipper is longer than my pouch, I don't have to worry about the zipper tab or any of the metal stoppers at the end being in the way. If you're using the exact size zipper, when you get to the end, you may have to zip or unzip your zipper just to make it all the way to the end of the zipper tape.
Okay, there is one piece sewn on. Now let me show you how to get the other part pinned and clipped. Now, in my zipper livestream, I showed you how to do this with the zipper pouch. We had to sew our zipper in, then we had to turn it around, and then we did the top stitching. But with this process, we went ahead and did the top stitching all in one shot. So you're only having to sew each side of the zipper just once.
So now to figure out where we want to put the next side. Now, I like to go ahead and bring it down about an inch. You can use a ruler or you can use your cutting mat. I can line up my zipper and then bring this one down. I want to make sure when I'm lining it up, I don't want to have any little wonkiness on the sides. I want these sides to line up nicely so that everything is nice and even. You don't have to be exact. You can bring it down three quarters of an inch. If you're making a smaller pouch and you want it to be more of a pencil pouch, you can move it all the way down to the center. If you decided you put it on upside down and wrong, and you want to change where everything is, you can go ahead and put it this way, like this. So you can go ahead and move this anywhere you want, just as long as your sides are nice and neat and lined up, you'll be okay.
Now, if you're doing it exact zipper, the exact size, when you fold this down, you go ahead and put all your pins in. You can open your zipper up to give yourself some room. Since my zipper is larger, I can go ahead and open that up all the way. I'm going to go ahead and just clip my ends first because I want to make sure that I keep everything in nice and lined up, and I don't want anything to get wonky. And when I put the clip in, I'm only going to put it through this. I'm not going to go through this back part here, just the top, the zipper, and this part that I folded down. And do the same thing over on this side. And after I get those first clips in, it was going to hold that section at least for me. So that when I open this up, and I can go ahead and put the zipper, the clips on the rest of the zipper. If I want to put some extra ones on, or if I want to just stick with my three, I can put more in if I want.
Now, since my zipper opens up more than my pouch does, I'm able to take this right back over to the sewing machine and stitch it down the same way. If your zipper were the same size, when you get down to the end, you may have to lift up your presser foot, unzip it, or zip it depending on which end you're at, so that you can go ahead and continue stitching it down. But because we're using a larger zipper, it's going to be quite easy. I'm going to be able to do it the same exact way I did the first one and stitch this down. All right, so let me go stitch this down, and I'll show you what it looks like.
Here we are. We have everything is stitched down nicely. Technically, we didn't have to line it up exactly. Then I just kind of like to see what it's going to look like. We could have just stitched it up at the top like this, because in this next step is when we're going to actually make that fold come over. We want to do is we want to flip this. Before I flip it, I'm going to go ahead and open my zipper halfway, three quarters of the way. We want to turn this so it's the lining side out.
Now, this is where we're going to want to make sure everything's lined up where we want it to be. I'm going to make my sides lined up. I'm going to bring my down my top down just about an inch, three quarters of an inch. I can adjust it as I need to. Make sure everything's measured nice and neat. Hold my zipper together with my hands here, just to see that this part is equal all the way through. Let's give it a little finger press. I've got my sides all lined up nice and neat. I'm going to put a couple clips. One in here. Put another clip on this side, just so that I'm keeping everything lined up neatly.
Before you do this next part, make sure you've opened your zipper up. If your zipper tab is all the way out here, we're going to be sewing down our outer edges right now. So if it's on the outside here, you're going to end up cutting it off, and it won't be on the inside of the pouch, and it won't be easy for you to turn your pouch right side out because there's no opening. So this is where we're going to need our, leave our little opening here. I've opened my zipper up some. I have everything lined up neatly. Now I'm going to take this over to my sewing machine and I'm just going to stitch down both sides right here from top to bottom. I'm going to go over the zipper on both sides. This one here. If you want, you can just, you put everything together, put an extra clip in just to hold that second part that's open, or use pins, and that's just going to hold this in place nicely for me. So when I do my stitching down both sides, you can do a quarter inch or 3/8 of an inch. Usually, it's a lot easier to stitch your seam allowance 3/8 of an inch down here.
Now, if you use your zipper and it's the exact same size as your pouch, your zipper is going to have these metal bits here, right? So we're going to open our zipper up. And on this side, we have that really big stopper there. And it's going to be easy to see because as we stitch it in, we're going to see this metal piece here. So no matter what your seam allowances, you need to make sure that it's beyond that. It's smaller than wherever your metal tabs are. So if something happened and your tab is close to the edge, you're going to have a smaller seam allowance. So I want to make sure that I don't run over that metal part, especially if you're using a metal zipper. You can't even come on the inside because it's not easy to sew over metal. So it's best to sew over the part of the tape that's just floppy down here.
Since our zipper is longer than necessary, I made sure it's opened. I'm going to stitch down both sides with a 3/8 seam allowance. It's just a regular straight stitch down there. I'm going to use a 2.0 inch stitch length because I like to have it nice and tight. I did just stitch down one side, but I was thinking I missed one little tip for you guys. One of the things you want to make sure before you go ahead and do this is you want to make sure that your lining and your regular fabric, everything is laying nice and flat. Sometimes your lining can get scooched up. I take either a, I have a crochet hook, a knitting needle, you could take an unsharpened pencil, one of your rulers, and I just kind of make sure it's scooted all down. I just take it along here and I make sure that the whole bottom, that all of my outside fabric that I can't see. You could feel if you have any uneven lumps. However that is when you sew it, that's how it's going to be. So you don't want to have any pieces in weird positions.
Okay, everything's stitched. I did go over my zipper parts a couple times here just to give it that extra security. It's going to be in the seam allowance and everything, but just in case something gets a little wild and crazy when they're zipping, I want to make sure that it's in there nice and secure. It's not necessary, especially if you're in a metal zipper and you're, you know, really tight and close and stuff. If you just get through once, it'll be okay. But if you want to give that extra bit of security, go ahead and stitch over it twice.
I am using the nylon zipper, so I'm able to cut through it with my scissors. These are just my regular crafting scissors, they aren't anything special. I'm going to cut off that bit of zipper there. All of the loose threads. I'm going to show you how to take care of this edge in just one moment. So let's get this trimmed up. I'm just trimming my zipper up, even going over the teeth is a little bit difficult sometimes.
Now, before I turn my pouch right side out, I want to go ahead and do something with my little seam allowance over here, my raw edges. These are perfectly fine just like they are. You don't have to do anything. But some of the fabric does fray over time, especially if you end up washing the pouch. If you have a serger, you can go ahead and do a nice little serge seam over it. I use the overcast stitch on my sewing machine, or if you have a zigzag, you can go ahead and do that. So I'm going to go ahead and just do an overcast stitch on these. It just means that the thread is going to go over like this. A zigzag stitch does the same, or you can even just put another straight line of stitching if that's the only type of stitch your machine does, and that will give you, it'll stop it from fraying. It'll only fray a little bit on the edge and it'll stop it from getting all the way to your seam.
My overcast stitch, but I, in my bobbin, I went ahead and put some red thread in, just so you can get an idea of what it looks like. Normally, I would have gone ahead with the white and the white and the top and the bobbin. But just so that I wanted you guys to see what it looks like. But if you did it in white on both, with a white lining fabric, it wouldn't be noticeable. And the only thing else we have left to do now is we'll turn our pouch right side out. So we left our zipper open so that we can do that.
You can always use some type of a rounded tip tool just to pop out your corners, make everything look nice and neat. I would take it over to my pressing station and I would give all the edges a nice press just to make it look really nice and nice and crisp and clean. But there you go. There's your zipper pouch. It was really simple to put in. It only takes about 10 or 15 minutes total after you know you got to take a little bit of time to prep your materials and stuff like that. But it's a very quick pouch. And if you're concerned, as I said, if you're concerned about any of the raw edges, just come back next week and I'll show you how to cover these up.
If you go out and you're looking at a Walmart and Target and stuff like that, if you look at their pouches, you go ahead and pop them open. Some of them will be perfectly fine and nice and neat. But several of them, you'll see that all they did was overcast the seam like this. It is a quick and easy way to make pouches. It still works the same as every other one. I like how the zipper is down from the top. So you can really use any type of fabric that you'd like for this. Even if you want to maybe use your husband's old plaid shirt from work, or one of the ones he likes to wear on the weekend. The back of the shirt is really great material to use like this. Put some of the interfacing or stabilizer on it, or quilt it, and you'll be all set to go. It's a great way to use up something that you might throw away and to have that little bit of an extra memory of your husband's favorite shirt.
So that's it. If you have any questions about how to make one of these zipper pouches, please leave them down below in the comments. And please come back next week and see how to cover up those seams. If you hit the subscribe button and then ring the little bell, YouTube will let you know when I put up my next video. This one will be up Friday at 9:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, and I'll show you how to get rid of that visible seam on the inside. So thanks for hanging out with me, and I'll see you guys next time. Bye.