Orange Sewing Caddy

This cute sewing caddy comes from a pattern from Straight Stitch Society.

There are a few really cute patterns from this designer. This particular one also comes in an apple variety and both of them have an optional needle holder (can’t think of a better word) that’s a flat piece that goes in the middle like meat on a sandwich. The right side is a pin cushion and the left side is a zipper pouch. There’s a leaf that’s not on this one that attaches to the zipper pull. It closes by a button and elastic loop and the outside is a quilted look of different orange fabric segments.

There are a couple tricky things about this pattern. First, as you can tell, there are many tight curves. Curves can be difficult to sew, especially if you’re a beginner, which I was when I did this. Additionally, on the zipper pouch side there’s some thick interfacing and a lining. So you have a thick stack to sew through plus a small size and tight curves. Also also, you have to sew through the zipper tape in 2 places, an elastic loop on one side, and a hinge on the other.

For some reason I don’t usually have trouble sewing zippers on so that was fine. I usually just use a regular zipper foot and I put the needle to the left position instead of center. That allows the zipper foot to glide along the teeth and gives a good 1/8” on each side (IIRC – I could be wrong). I don’t know if I had mastered that with this orange though.

Another tricky part was the appliques. I haven’t ever been able to do appliques properly, at least according to how you traditionally should do them. These segments are especially hard because they’re tiny. Imagine a seam allowance of like 1 millimeter that you have to snip for the curves (generally on a curve you snip the seam allowance, either into a triangle or just a slit depending on which way the curve is going, so the seam will flow better – this has to be done on the thick stack that I mentioned above, too). I think I tried the freezer paper method for this (a way of transferring a design) and it just didn’t work for me. Plus, I hate the slip stitch, which is usually used to attach appliques, and again the pieces were just too small for the slip stitch. I like the look of blanket stitch so I just used that, as I usually do for appliques.

It’s definitely not an easy pattern, but it’s really cute if you manage to get it done!