Evil zips - the battle continues

Hubby recently had a meetng up north and so stayed with my sister and her boyfriend near Birmingham for the night.  On hearing he was coming to stay my sister immediately requested that I send up a boxy pouch for her.  This gave me one evening to make one, complete it and pack it into hubby's overnight bag.  I considered saying no momentarily, then I remembered she gave me her car and figured I'd better crack on...

She was pleased, which is always a relief when I give somebody something I have made.  I'm not sure what she'll use it for, make-up perhaps, or knowing my sister chicken feed! 

I am really enjoying making these little pouches, though I admit my method of working with zips is still rather haphazard.  I have been making it up as I go along and when it comes to sewing in the zip using my zipper foot I am sure I am doing something wrong.  My process always involves me attempting to shift the bulky "pull" part of the zip out of the way of the zipper foot, sometimes it's really fiddly and I use my stitch-ripper to pull the zip out of the way.  Unfortunately this led to said stitch-ripper meeting a rather untimely end...

Guess that's why it's called a "stitch-ripper" and not "zip-puller" then.  Ahem.

Nevertheless I managed to produce two more little pouches this afternoon, in a desperate bid to get some creativity out of my system and to relax myself in what is turning out to be possibly one of the worst couple of months of my life so far.  Sometimes I wonder when the crap will stop happening.  In the meantime though there is always sewing to keep me sane (ish). 

Lined with one of my favourite organic cottons - from Gossypium.  When I looked recently they weren't doing this in blue anymore, which is a shame as I always thought I might get around to making some pillowcases from it some day.

This one is extra dinky!

So zips and I still have a way to go before we reach a happy union.  My next challenge is to be a zippered bag!  Oh yes, I am branching out.  I designed a big bow design with a lined front pocket, here's a sneaky peak...

More on this soon, as soon as I have finished wrestling my latest zip past that darned zipper foot, there must be an easier method than this.. :)