And another Sew Sweetness Minikins 4. This one was designated for my daughter-in-law, as they were colors I knew she’d love. I don’t remember when I “invested in” this fabric, but it’s been in my stash for quite a while—one of those too-beautiful-to-cut-into fabrics.
There was a little snafu in the construction process. The side pieces, which straddle the opening, between the front and back, are called accordions. There are four pieces, two for each side. They are to be sewn, right-sides-together, with a seam horizontally along the top and the bottom. Then they are to be turned right-sides-out and carefully pressed. The accordion then has raw edges on the sides, and finished edges on the top and bottom. The raw edges are then sewn into the inside of the exterior zipper edge, resulting in the accordion being completely finished on all four sides: no raw edges.
But Miss “I’m just going to whip through this construction so I can get back to practicing for my show rehearsal tonight” somehow sewed each set of two pieces wrong sides together, with raw edges on all four sides. When I discovered this error, the side edges of the accordion were already sewn into the exterior zipper seam. I was at the final step of the pouch construction, and could not back up to do the top and bottom seams of the accordion correctly.
The only way I could think of to solve my mishap was to hand-sew a narrow piece of binding along the top of the accordion. (Click on the photo above and then zoom in on your device to see that binding along the top of the two accordions. You’ll notice on the left edge of the accordion top closest to you in the photo, there’s a tiny gap between the left edge of the binding and the zipper tape. Along the bottom of each accordion, I carefully trimmed the raw edges, then applied FrayCheck to the raw edges, knowing there was not way I could hand-sew a strip of binding in that tight space.
I was at a loss on what to do about this bag. I had made it specifically for my DIL. Should I just keep it for myself and find some other suitable fabric to make another for her? This salmon and turquoise fabric that I knew she would love was long gone. I’m pretty sure I purchased it in 2018, and every search of the internet to find some for sale was a total failure.
I sent her the pictures and asked her what she thought. Being the kind and thoughtful person that her mama raised, she said she loved it and wanted it and didn’t care about the raw edges, that she couldn’t even see in the photos. So off it went to Northern Lower Michigan, and I imagine it’s already filled with her cosmetics.
Tomorrow I’m driving up to attend family weekend at Interlochen Arts Academy, where she works and her daughter is a brand new freshman. I imagine if I peek into the primary bedroom and bath, I’ll see the pouch there, hard at work.
Now I only have two more Enigma pouches on my to-do list: one for myself and one for my son’s Mother-in-law. I’m hopeful these will have zero snafus!!
