I had a slightly failed attempt at sewing a mobile phone pouch. I took a little inspiration from Quiltish’s Phone Case Design Process and Katie’s Quilting Corner’s Easy Lined Pouch Tutorial. A few things I learned:

• Measuring is important. My pouch is too large. I was being overly generous with my seam allowances and didn’t check it enough as I went along to reduce it to a reasonable size.
• Think about how it will be used. The flap isn’t functioning well – it has a tendency to pop out from underneath the elastic that’s intended to hold it in place. A tighter fitting pouch or a longer flap might have solved this problem.
• Think about placement. The pocket was meant to be on the front, not on the back! I wasn’t paying attention as I compiled the pieces (I was having a minor war with the sewing machine refusing to work properly so I was a little distracted).
• Think two steps ahead. As I assembled the pouch, I managed to jumble the whole thing up so that when I tried to turn the piece inside out it turned out to just be one long piece of fabric. It’s important, especially when you’re at the point of joining things together, to think a few steps ahead before you sew to make sure you’re not sewing the wrong seam. And you need to be good friends with your seam ripper if things go pear-shaped like they did for me :)