Gifts For Friends: Cow Print Colorwork Hat and Sunburst Granny Square Zipper Pouches

 Recently Finished Projects and Gifts

Although giving gifts does bring me some stress, I know that my skills can provide some ideas to give gifts to my friends. I had 3 friends who had birthdays recently and I decided to make two of the same thing to make for 2 of them, and the last one I make some original ideas. I hope this post inspires you and gets your creative juices flowing!

Sunburst Granny Square Zipper Pouch

What a mouthful of a name! After thoroughly enjoying making the Sunburst granny square bag in the previous post, I decided to try a new project with the same granny square pattern(Sarah Maker). I had been seeing these zipper pouches all over Pinterest and Etsy and I never thought to make them because I thought they weren’t going to work out the way I wanted and envisioned. I thought that putting the zipper and lining would be hard and not worth the time, but to my surprise, I was able to get it done in the first try. My experience in sewing pouches had come in handy. 

I used my Brother Strong and Tough Sewing machine so that I didn't have to sew in the lining by hand and there were two things I had to remember while working. I had to remember to take care to not stretch the crochet so that it would sew evenly, and I also made sure to go much slower than how I normally do.
I used random acrylic yarn for each square and used a join as you go method to put them together.

 

Another thought is that I could make a purse and zipper pouch to match each other if I use the same squares! Stay tuned it you want to see that. And in the future, I want to make some to sell at my table soon.

Cow Print Set

I have a good friend who really likes cow print. When I saw a cow print makeup pouch on her birthday registry, I knew instantly that I could make it for her. I found a cow print fat quarter(18x22” piece of fabric) at hobby lobby and got to sewing. I also picked up some pretty purple fabric for the lining because that is her favorite color. I used Monica’s quilted pouch tutorial on her YouTube channel to figure out the measurements for it and got to sewing. Making the pouch was pretty easy, but took a little time, as like all handmade items. You'll hear more about my zipper pouches in a future post.

For the hat, I used Caron simply soft yarn in black and white. I used Tessa Herra's Cow Print Beanie PDF pattern off of Etsy for the colorwork.

It was a very simple pattern to make and I loved the whole process. I think the best 2 things about this pattern is one, that the designer put numbers to mark the colorwork sections, and two, the hat is made of double crochets. The numbers at the start of the colorwork sections made it quicker for me to follow the colorwork and it being made of double crochets made it quicker since it is a taller stitch. I just love colorwork. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to make another, but just cloud-themed. I will probably sell this one when the fall comes.