My First Zippered Pouch/Wristlet

Hi everybody!! I'm pretty excited to show you what I made last night; my first zippered, strapped pouch/purse/wristlet!!

Isn't it cute?! It's my first ever zippered little pouch/wristlet/purse!!! And I did 3 new things I never have before!!

The zipper isn't technically my first, but it may as well be!! I've only done one before on a skirt for a Halloween outfit and as those are only worn once or twice, there wasn't much care on installing it. Here's my purse zipper though:

What do you guys think?? Did I get the fabric close enough to the edge of the zipper?? I tried my hardest to make it a hidden zipper but apparently I might need a zipper foot on my sewing machine to really get that good! 

The next first was putting a gather on anything!! I did have to fiddle with my sewing machine a bit (since I didn't have my instruction manual with me) to get the long stitch tension set right, but I got it!! And then when I put the middle strip on, you can hardly tell that there were 2 different stitch lines, right??:

Then there was the wrist strap I put on here. I've never really done a strap on the other 2 little purses I've done (they were both kisslock, will show y'all later! ;) ) so I think this turned out pretty good!:

The inside is a little unfinished, but I wasn't focusing so much on it as I was on the outside and getting the previously listed new things done right:

After I finished it however, I found the most awesome thing about using this little guy; my cell phone totally fits in here!!! YAY!!!

Things I will definitely need to work on next time will be making the edges on the inside (way way wayyy) more finished, putting a pocket in the inside for cards (the one I tried to put in there, I cut it too small for the seams I did so a card would NOT have fit) and in general just get my stitchlines more smooth and uniform. 

I made this little purse loosely based on the following tutorial:

Noodlehead: Tutorial for making a gathered clutch

I only had a 6" zipper in my stash so that's the size I made, 6"x4", and I really only glanced at her tutorial for making the gather and the zipper installation itself so that means I made my own template pieces and measurements myself and the whole process with me trying to figure it all out in my head took about 2 1/2 hours!! 

The next one I make however I would like to make it more to her actual tutorial and see the difference (with the exception of the amount of extra fabric for the gather as I'd like more than what I have here and what she has on hers lol) between the two. I also definitely want to try a pocket again and see about getting one (or more?) in the inside of the clutch.

Lastly, making it to her tutorial, I'd have to figure out the little pieces she used to cover the ends of the zipper at the top as opposed to mine only going to the end of the purse sides themselves.

Stay tuned!!