End of year gifts

The end of the school year has come and gone. Big Bear is officially a preschool graduate-- Kindergarten, here we come! I'm still a little dumbstruck. While he is definitely ready to move on, I'm not sure I am. Ha!

Anyway, I managed to make a few end of year gifts for class coordinators and a couple of special friends. The gift of choice: The Circle Zip Earbud Pouch!



This awesomely smart and practical tutorial is from Erin of Dog Under My Desk. It is one of those, "Why didn't I think of that???" ideas that is quick, easy and fabulous. The instructions were clear and well illustrated.



I made the first one (pictured above), from cutting to last stitch, in 40 minutes; the others were even faster. The trickiest part of the process was sewing the outside edge of the circle such that when it was turned right-side-out, it actually resulted in a circle. My advice is to just take it slowly and focus on small, even turns as you sew the seam on the outside edge. By the last one, I had finally figured it out and was feeling pretty pleased with the resulting shape.



I had fun picking out fabrics. I decided to go with a print for the outside and then solids for the tab and lining.

Best of all, everyone loved the pouches. Yay! I was so pleased with the tutorial, I went ahead and purchased the pattern for Erin's Two-Zip Hipster. It looks like it will be an awesome going-to-the-park bag (a summer necessity!), so I hope to make one soon!