It was my husband’s birthday a few weeks ago and I had been promising him FOREVER to replace his favorite pillow for him (yes, I took the old one and tossed it thinking I would whip him up a new one in no time).  It took me a while to come up with what I wanted to do.  He would have been happy with just a couple fabrics slapped together, but I thought and thought and thought some more about that darn pillow.  It had to be perfect, or so I thought. 

I ended up waiting until his actual birthday to make the first pillow.  Mistake.  It was so hard keeping the girls occupied while trying to come up with a cool design for the pillow.  I finished it just in time – and he loves it.  yay.

I had also planned on making a few more pillows to throw on the couch, so I finished the last two up last night.  Made me really happy to check that one off my list, I had been putting it off for long enough. 

I ended up making the big square pillow forms myself which was really fun, but the rectangular ones are small travel pillows.  I lined all but one pillow with muslin for a little more sturdiness (I love it!).  The first pillow I made using fusible fleece and quilted it with straight lines, but I prefer the other versions a little better.

You’ll need:

• 1 pair men’s khaki pants
• 1/4 yard for lining, or find some scraps
• (2) 8.5″w x 4″ tall pieces of fabric for exterior accent
• sew in velcro (3/4″ wide)
• thread

Carefully cut the pieces from your khaki pants (you’ll want to be sure to include the pocket lining when you cut), the pocket part of the pants will be the front of the bag and the opposite (plain part of khaki pants on the front side of the pant) will be the back.

Cut 2 pieces 8.5″ x 8.5″ from your pants (each pair of pants will yield two sandwich bags) and why not use the leg pieces for some drawstring backpacks while you’re at it?!

Cut 2 pieces 8.5″ x 8.5″ from rip-stop nylon (if you want a water resistant lining), or just cotton will work too!

Sew on the accent fabric:

Iron down the long side a 1/4″ on each piece.  Line up the fabric with the bottom of the bag, topstitch along top part of accent fabric.  Repeat for backside.

Sew the bag:

Place exterior pieces RIGHT sides together and sew along both sides and bottom.

Repeat for lining fabric.

Turn lining piece right side out and place inside the exterior piece.

Sew around top of sandwich bag leaving a 2-3″ opening for turning.  Turn right side out through hole.  Press.

Topstitch around entire opening of bag.

Sewing on the velcro:

Cut a strip of velcro approximately 5.5″ long.  Pin in place on lining.  Sew around all four sides of velcro.  Repeat for other side of velcro.

If you want to add a special touch, replace the khaki pants pocket button with a pretty one.  You can even personalize them with a freezer paper stencil.  Another option would be to skip the accent exterior fabric and grab some fabric markers and let your kids decorate their own bags!

Slip in your sandwich, tuck in a little note, add a mint or piece of candy for after lunch and you’re set!  Yum!

As you all know, I love a good zipper project.  My aunt had asked me to make her a make up pouch to replace one of hers that had seen better days.  She’s an avid sewer and gave me a few scraps to use (yeah, I know Mary, I can hear you laughing now about me using the word avid to describe your sewing). 

I ended up making two just because!  I find it easier to do a couple zipper projects at once because you’ll be swapping to the zipper foot anyway.  For these pouches I used a combination of linens/quilting cottons and did a few quilting lines on each (they have quilt batting in the middle). 

I think these are so fun and functional.  As far as I know, I’ve pretty much given almost all the women I know a zippered make up pouch from me within the past year. In fact, I should probably keep track of that, can one ever have too many pouches?!  Do you have a favorite go-to project?