Sew your own drawstring pouch !

DRAWSTRING POUCHES

Drawstring pouches are actually incredibly useful, they can be used to store so many things! Use an A4 sized pouch as a clothes bag, smaller ones to store earpieces, or even make a bigger sized ones that you can change to a drawstring bag. When you can customise the size of the pouch, the possibilities are endless, just alter the size to suit your needs!

Materials you'll need for your drawstring pouch:

1. Fabric ( you can use patterned ones if you'd like, but choose a fabric with no stretch ! )
2. Ribbon / cord
3. Scissors
4. Needle and thread ( or a sewing machine but the old school needle and thread works well too ! )
5. A safety pin
6. Some fabric pins OR washi tape !

Following the pattern above, leave a 2cm ‘u’ shaped border around your desired pouch size. This forms your seam allowance, giving you some space to sew! To create space for the casing for your ribbon or cord, add an extra 5-6cm of allowance to the top of your desired fabric size. If you'd like a tapered bottom, add a little right angled triangle on each bottom corner as seen in the pattern, or if you prefer a rectangular shape, leave your pattern as it is.

Making the drawstring casing   

After you’ve cut your fabric, fold down the top of the casing seam allowance by half to create the case. Then following the picture on the top left, tuck in the sides of the casing. 

Quick trick: I like to use washi tape to tape the fabric down (using fabric pins sometimes prick me or warp the fabric when I'm hand sewing!   

After you've created the casing, all thats left is to stitch it in place! Flip your fabric around and use a pencil and a ruler to draw a horizontal line about 1.5 cm from the top of the fabric. Next, grab your needle and preferred thread colour and start stitching along the pencil mark. Here I used a backstitch which gives a cleaner look to the final product!

Backstitch : Following the pictures, insert your needle through the fabric one stitch length in front of the previous stitch, then stitch backwards.

Quick trick: By aligning your needle with the rest of the stitches and inserting the needle one stitch length ahead ( extreme right photo ) you get a perfectly straight row of stitches!    

When you’ve finished stitching close both casings, align the right sides of the fabric ( the sides without the fabric flap ) and draw out your seam allowance on the fabric. Stitch along the pencil marks on your fabric pieces, and if you opted for the tapered pouch, trim off the access fabric triangles along the sides.

Threading the ribbon       

Turn your pouch inside out, and now all thats left is to thread the ribbon through the casing! Using the safety pin, pin the ribbon as shown in the picture and tug it through one end the casing and coming out at the hole behind from the same end where you started. Knot both ends together and you've got one end done! Repeat the same steps for the opposite end, and when thats done, you have a drawstring pouch !