moda mini charm series: part two

I hope ya'll enjoyed reading about making the baby blocks out of the first Moda mini charm pack! I am already planning out a few more sets of those! 

The idea for the second project came as I had been scrolling through Instagram and started seeing a lot of cute quilted zipper bags. Looking at them, I knew they would be perfect for the charm pack project. I think zipper bags are one of the easiest "beginner" projects I have tried so far, I love having tons of them on hand, and they make great gifts too. 

If you've been following along on Instagram or read my other posts, you already know that I am not a quilter. I have never made a quilt and am really intimidated by it. There are several women in my family who are amazing at it, and right now I rely on them to make me quilts! ( I got one for Christmas this year and love it!)

For this zipper pouch I used the Moda mini charm pack "Silver Linings" by Laundry Basket Quilts., I used pieces of the mini charm pack as well as some 2.5x4.5" scrap cuts from the peach fabric that I used to make the drawstrings in my drawstring travel bags. I pieced them together and ended up with a large rectangle. 

At this point, I noticed that because of my poor cutting (really need that rotary cutter!) there were a few spots where my pieces didn't connect well. I had sewn with a 1/4 inch seam allowance and in some places there wasn't enough room for that. 

So, I decided to cut out an 8x8 square from my large rectangle where all the good pieces were and use that as the front of my pouch. 

I cut the square, then cut a piece of batting and lining and pinned them all together with safety pins. I then started quilting. Since I had never done it and I didn't have any kind of marking pen, I decided to just do straight lines, each 1/2 inch apart. After doing that, my respect for quilters who do free-motion quilting multiplied by like a gillion! 

Once it was quilted, I cut off the bulk batting and tried to make sure that my quilt top and back for my pouch were the same size and then I proceeded to follow my favorite zipper pouch tutorial by Dana Willard at Made Everyday. Her videos really are the best "tutorial" videos I have seen. 

Now, since it was quilted, the layers were much thicker than my previous zipper pouches, and as I was finishing this up, I definitely broke my needle on the zipper! Yikes! Thankfully it was at the very end and didn't mess me up too much. 

And there you have it! A fun, quilted zipper pouch using mini charms! 

If you look closely at all my pictures you can tell that I am a super novice quilter! It's okay, seeing this only makes me want to improve even more! 

Can there ever be too many zipper pouches? I think not!

Part two of the Moda mini charm series is in the books! If you want to be notified about part three, make sure you are subscribed and/or follow me on Instagram!