how to sew a zipper pocket

Maddie wanted me to make her a bag to carry her bits and bobs in, so I seemed to spend endless hours working out exactly what I wanted to make…looking at loads of tutorials and trying to figure out a few pieces for myself.
The finish was perfect for her and both she and I love it! It has a zip to completely enclose the contents and a little pocket on the front to store her littlest treasures in.

The whole tutorial is pretty long so I thought I’d split it into two…here, I’ll lay out how I sewed together the front piece with it’s zipper pocket and the top opening zip piece, check out the rest of the tutorial here!

So here goes…

// Here’s what you need (for the whole bag)

*outer fabric and lining
*webbing for the strap
*interfacing
*two zips not pictured (6 inch red pocket zip and 7 inch green zip for top opening)

// Cut front piece of outer fabric 10.5 inches (width) by 9 inches.

// Cut a smaller piece of red fabric for your pocket lining (8 x 9 inches) and iron your interfacing to this.

// Place outer fabric and pocket lining pieces right sides together, with the pocket lining 1 inch from the top of the main fabric. Using a pencil to mark the centre of the top edge of each piece, make sure these line up (this avoids any unnecessary Maths!). Pin.

// Measure from the top of the pocket lining 1.5 and 2 inches. Mark at either end and draw a horizontal line for both measurements, the whole width of the pocket fabric.

// Measure in 1 inch from each side and draw a vertical line between the two horizontal lines. This should create a long, thin rectangle.

// Calculate the central line (by measuring the width of the rectangle and marking the exact centre – do this at each end and join the marks with a line).

// Join the centre line to the corners to create a little triangle at each end (as shown in the picture above).

// Sew around the rectangle marked.

// Cut along the centre line and triangle edges….NOT along any of the rectangle edges!

// Push the pocket lining through the gap. 

// On the wrong side of the outer lining, iron the pocket lining flat. I then used a little double sided tape along each edge of the gap to hold the zip in place.

// Place the zip on the double sided tape and press down, the right side facing the same  direction as the main, outer fabric.

// This is how it looks from the front. You can manoeuvre the zip until you have got it positioned how you would like.

// Sew around the zip edge.

// Turn to the wrong side and fold the pocket lining up so the top and bottom edges meet. Pin.

// To sew the pocket lining in place you will need to fold the main fabric out of the way. Sew your way around the edge, folding the main fabric away as you need.

// It should look like this from the back…

// …and from the front!!

Now it’s done and ready to sew into the main bag.


I used the exact same technique to sew the top zipper into place.
Use your outer and lining fabric pieces…10.5 x 2.5 inches.

A reminder:

*Find the centre of the fabric piece for the rectangle to be drawn. 
*Draw and mark your rectangle centrally, making sure it has a width of 0.5 inch, with the small triangles at each end.
*Sew around rectangle edge.
*Cut the line and triangle edges.
*Push the lining fabric through and iron flat on reverse.
*Sew in place.

Image above shows positioning before I sewed around the edge of the zip…don’t sew around outer edge of fabric – leave open.