Another teacher gift

My son has a total of 6 preschool teachers!  The two morning teachers are no longer getting the tote bags, instead a class gift is being bought.  Of course I found this out after I made the boat tote.  I would love to give the gift anyways, but I am not going to do that due to the parents decided to do a class gift.  My son though does have teachers for his afternoon specials that I signed him up for.  I was unsure what I was going to get them, so my dilemma is solved.  His two main teachers will get boat totes and their assistants will be receiving pencil pouches.

Here is the tutorial for the pencil pouches. 
I bought a 12 inch zipper, because I couldn't find a 10 inch one.  That is okay because the excess will be between the outer casing and the lining.  You need a total of 4 pieces of fabric, mine are cut to 7"x10".

To me, this is the hardest step if you are using a patterned fabric like I did where the direction of which it faces actually matters.  You sandwich the top of the zipper with the lining and casing (right sides facing) and the pattern direction matters.  It goes, lining right side up, pattern right side up, zipper facing up, then outer fabric right side facing down.  See the picture below.  Once you have this, PIN!

Next, I placed the zipper foot on my machine.  Then I sewed.

Once you are done with one side, you need to do this to the other side.  You will have to open up the fabric and press it down with an iron, so now the wrong sides of the fabric are facing each other.  Once all four pieces of fabric are connected, the next step is to unzip the zipper half way (SUPER IMPORTANT) and then pin the lining pieces together and the outer pieces together.  Sew the outer pieces together and then the lining pieces, making sure to leave a gap about 3 inches in length or longer to turn the piece.  Make sure you do not sew over the zipper itself.

Turn the pouch inside out using the gap that you created.

Handstitch the gap closed and press your seams down and you have a zippered pencil pouch!  This honestly took me about 30 minutes to do.  I am by no means an advanced sewer.  I consider myself still a beginning sewer, who is trying to learn all she can.  If you were to see my sewing machine, you would laugh.  It was purchased 5 years ago at Wal-mart for $70.  It's just a basic Singer 9 stitch.  If anyone wants to provide me with a better one...I would gladly take it off your hands! :)  Okay, enough pandering for a new machine (which will be on my birthday wish list, since my Christmas list is already full) and onto the finished picture.

An apple (or apples) for the teacher.  Which is why I chose the lining fabric that I did.  I think it is super cute and can't wait to finish this project up, because there is one more thing left to do, which will be included in a tutorial next week.