and I'm done!

I was so excited to finish the pouch for the Pretty {little} Pouch Swap that I broke my own rule and sewed past 9pm.  

On the plus side, I finished the pouch and I absolutely love how it turned out!  I kept waving it around in front of my husband who was also duly impressed.

On the down side... I broke my rule and as usual, something happened.  I cut my finger with my rotary cutter.  Typical.

Remember, I chose to join the advanced ranks?  I was a little nervous about this pouch meeting advanced specifications, so I made it using three different challenges for myself. 

1. I did some relatively difficult (at least for me) piecing with lots of parts.  Not a perfectly straight result, but still looks good.

2. I did some paper pieced applique - something I very rarely do.  I do paper piecing often, but not much hand stitched applique.  Again, not perfectly lined up, but lets just focus on the colour here, and you won't even notice.

3. I added some hand stitching to both sides.  I was a little stumped on how to add hand stitching to the star, but I think it worked out good.  On the back side, I tried a stitch other than the simple running stitch to embroider my partner's name on the pouch and I also love how that turned out.  

Course, I can't show that part yet because she might just check my blog and that would ruin the surprise.

It is a square pouch finishing at 8.5" on all sides.  

I really hope it meets my partner's expectations of an advanced pouch swap.