[DIY Tutorial] Protective Storage Pouch for Everything and Anything!

For our latest tutorial, we'll be showing you how to make a simple padded pouch that you can use to store almost anything! Depending on your dimensions, you can put your laptop or phone in it, protect jewelry when travelling or even make it a snack bag! Read on to find out how to make these variations!

Materials Needed:
Sewing machine
Serger (optional but recommended)
Iron and iron board

0.3m to 0.5m of a solid colour AND a patterned cotton fabric (depends on the size of your pouch; we only needed about 0.2m) Coordinate your fabric for a really cute pouch.
0.2m of flattened stuffing, foam or thick felt material (not pictured)
Velcro (we used a strip about 2 inches long, but use a longer piece depending on your pouch)
Fabric shears
Quilting Ruler
Chalk
Mini Snippers

Instructions:
(Click photos to enlarge)
1. We made ours based on the size of an iPad; to make the same size, lay your fabrics out flat, measure a rectangle 8.5" wide by 25" and mark it with chalk. (The dimensions depend on what size you want your pouch to be.)

*To make a pouch for an electronic device, take the measurement of the length, double it and add 6 inches.
Take the width, add the height measurement and add another inch.
For example: an iPad is 9.50" long, 7.31" wide and 0.34" deep.
The length of your rectangle will be (9.5 x 2) + 6 = 25 inches.
The width of the rectangle will be 7.31 + 0.34 + 1 = 8.65 inches (use 8.5 just to make things easier.)

2. Cut the same rectangle out from both fabrics.

3. Using the length and width measurement, take off about an inch from the width measurement, and cut out two pieces of stuffing. Our pieces were approx. 9.5" by 7". Set them aside for now.

4. Take the two pieces of fabric, pin them good sides together, and sew around three sides, backstitching at the beginning and end, leaving one width end open. (We serged ours, but that is totally up to you since the raw edges will all be hidden at the end.)

5. Flip it inside out and press the seams with an iron.

6. Take the two pieces of stuffing and slide them in one at a time all the way to the end. Make sure the pieces are snug but leave a small gap between them for the fold in the next step.

7. Good sides together, fold the padded and closed end up by your length dimension.
(The folded top piece will be 9.5" for our pouch.)

8. Pin the sides together and sew at 3/8" seam allowance. Backstitch at the beginnings and ends. (We used 1/8 seam allowance for ours so theres less bulk on the sides.)

9. Flip the pouch inside out and you'll find that the sides of the closure flap slightly folds in. Fold the sides of the flap down at 3/8" and pin. Sew those two sides down at 2/8". Remember to backstitch. (These stitches will show up on the front of the flap; sew carefully to ensure its a straight line!)

10. To close off the top of the opened flap, do the same as the previous step, fold at 3/8", pin and sew at 2/8".

At this point, your pouch should look like this. If you choose not to add a velcro closure, you're now finished!

11. To sew the velcro and hide the stitches too, sew the velcro on the other side of the flap. You can sew it in a rectangle, pivoting at the corners with the needle in, and backstitching over where you started.

Click to enlarge for further instructions

12. Flipping the pouch over again, fold the part of the flap with the velcro in, pin down the sides and sew on the same line that you made in Step 8. Backstitch. Again, sew carefully on top on the previous line as these stitches will show on the front of the flap.

13. To sew the other side of the velcro, fold the flap down, match where the other piece of velcro will stick and pin.

14. Sliding your pouch into your sewing machine, sew two lines on the velcro to hold it down. Backstitch at the beginning and ends to secure the velcro.

Tada! You just made a soft protective pouch that stores just about anything!

Hope this tutorial was easy enough to follow.
Drop us any questions or comments you have :)

Tips for Variations:
- Laptop/phone/electronic device case: Measure the length, width and height.
The dimensions of your rectangle will be ((Length x 2) + 6") by (Width + Height + 1").
- Use thicker stuffing to protect your device.
This is great for travelling with fragile items or even to protect your electronics better.
- Use a waterproof plastic for the inner fabric.
You can now use your pouch as a snack/lunch bag or even store liquid makeup and nail polishes!
- Add a longer piece of velcro.
This provides a sturdier closure for your pouch and you could even use it to store jewelry in travel.
- Place the bottom and side seams on top of each other and sew a perpendicular line across both corners.
Cut off the excess. This gives your pouch a larger base and a boxier/3D look.
*We'll post pics soon to show you how this is done.

Thanks for reading through this tutorial!
Until next week,

FashionDIY Artist signing out~

ps - We would LOVE to hear any of your tutorial requests! Leave 'em below or tweet us at @swfds!