Earbud Pouches--Pattern Review

(I know some things on my blog are off kilter a little bit.  I am working on fixing it.  Sorry!)

We have 10 very nice and helpful work-study students who work in our offices at the university.  They are so helpful all the time.  I wanted to do a little something for them for Christmas this year.  So, I made these cute little earbud pouches for them.  I like them.  They are cute and practical.  I want one now!

I used some of the Flutter fabric (from The Quilted Fish and Riley Blake) I had left from the projects I did for The Quilted Fish Emagazine I wrote about last week.  I.  Love.  This.  Fabric!

There's a little surprise inside each one.  I made the lining out of different fabric from the outside for a little fun.

This one here is one of my favorites.  :-)

I used matching zippers for the most part.  Sometimes I went wild and crazy and used a contrasting zipper, like on this one.

I wanted all of them to be different.  I didn't have the full set of Flutter fabric, and I didn't have enough different pieces to make all the pouches different.  So, I made a couple out of my Delighted scraps.  I went really wild on this one on the right by fussy cutting the fabric.

Cute, huh?  Sweet Pea said this one was her favorite.

Each one only took me 30 minutes to make, from cutting the fabric out to completely finished.  Yippee!  I think it's a great product for only 30 minutes of sewing.  I'm going to make five more for nieces and nephews for Christmas.  I have some cute, but completely different, fabrics picked out for those.  And of course Sweet Pea wants one now, too.  I'll tuck some spending money inside of them and mail them off.  It will be inexpensive to mail, too.  Nice!

There is a free tutorial for making these.  It is by Erin Erickson at Dog Under My Desk blog.  She also has a pattern you can purchase from her pattern shop.  I purchased the pattern, so my review will be based on the pattern I purchased.  I wanted to provide support for all her great work. 

I think I first saw this on my friend Lynn's blog.  You can read her review of the pattern here.  She used the tutorial, not the purchased pattern.  So if you want to see how they compare, check out her post on the matter.

The pattern is extremely clear and contains lots of nice photos.  Erin offers a lot of great tips in the pattern.  As I said, I could sew this up in about 30 minutes.  A quick and easy project!  It is suited well to beginners.  Not difficult at all.  Not even the zipper.  Don't be scared off by the zipper.  It's easy peasy to install.  I can recommend this pattern highly!  Many thanks for a very nice pattern/tutorial, Erin!

I followed Erin's advice and mounted my pattern pieces on cardstock so they were durable.  That worked out really well.  I'd recommend doing that.  Rather than using the half-circle pattern piece to mark the front pieces for cutting, I used the full circle piece that was used to cut the back.  Then, I used the half circle piece to draw the line down the center.  That was a quick and easy way to do it.  And then the two halves lined up perfectly on the front and looked nice.

I used my little collection of zippers from Zipit.  They sell nice bundles of a bunch of different colors of zippers for really reasonable prices.  Just out of curiousity, I made one using a Coats and Clarke zipper I also had laying around, just to see if there was a real difference between the zippers.  The Zipit zippers were easier to sew across and also zip and unzip more easily.  (Nothing wrong with Coats and Clarke, however.  They are fine.  The others are just a little nicer, I think.)  I love all the bright colors and the price, too.  It was really fun using stuff in my stash.  Made me feel good.  But now I just want to order more.  haha!

EDIT:  I MADE SOME MORE OF THESE AND BLOGGED THEM HERE.

Kathy was asking on her blog the other day for some suggestions for quick and easy gifts.  Well, I've got one now for you, Kathy!  Hope you're reading this!  :-)

On a side note, many of you asked about tutorials for the projects in the Emagazine.  The Quilted Fish is going to have them on her blog...at least for some of the projects.  I'll let you know when those are posted.  For one of mine, I'll post a brief tutorial here.  I thought that might make some of you happy to hear that.  :-)

Hope you are having a good week.  We are in the last week of classes, so it's busy, busy!

Until next time,

Note:  I purchased this pattern and the zippers myself to make these earbud pouches.  The fabric was provided to me at no cost by The Quilted Fish.

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Comments

[Mary on Lake Pulaski]

Thanks Stephanie - great info. I'm going to make a few of these for gifts too!

[Flo@butterfly Quilting]

great idea! I just ordered some zippers to make some of these. Thanks

[Lynn]

They are so cute! Love the fabrics!

[liveacolorfullife]

I really love these!

[Maggie Szafranski]

What a cool idea! I could see it as a place to keep a bit of change, also! Or perhaps a few spare Tylenol or Advil, or your nitroglycerin (can tell I have a medical background!)

[Jana]

I love making these. You can fit an iPod shuffle in it.

[Slipstreamfish.blogspot.com]

The student secretaries are going to love these! You do such beautiful work :)

[Thimbleanna]

Those are adorable Stephanie! I'm thinking cute little stocking stuffer for the girls in the family! ;-D

[Carla]

A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E! I am going to the zipper site now! Thanks, Stephanie.

[kathy olkowski]

I love this little pouch! I just might have to make some! Thanks for the link to my blog, too. You're a sweetie!

[jenclair]

So cute! Of course, the fabric is, as usual, just wonderful!

[terriaw]

This looks like a perfect handmade gift to give. My headphones were always getting tangled in my purse, but I made a little zipper pouch to put them in, which helps a lot. Love all the fun colors and fabric combos you put together.

[Allie]

Oh my goodness those are just too cute - love the fussy cutting!!!!

[Cindy]

Oh wow! I have this tutorial saved to make in the near future. I've been seeing these around Flickr. You've done a beautiful job on them! Thank you so much for the review and advice. :)

[Deb]

Cute cute cute - what great gifts!