Joey Pouches

In the last post I mentioned that I probably wouldn’t be back in my studio for a while, but that changed when I read a Facebook post about a request from the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Australia. 

Many of you don’t know this, but Michael and I lived in Australia for 6 years during the 1980’s.   While there, we saw the devastating effects of Bush Fires on humans, natural areas and animals.  So, when I heard that they were asking sewers from around the world to unite to make “Joey Pouches” for the young kangaroos who had lost their Mom’s in the fire, I knew that I wanted to join in.

I found the pattern online, purchased some nice flannel and headed upstairs.  Now let me start by saying that this was obviously NOT my day for following instructions because I did several things wrong, but the pouches still turned out ok.

The first step was to cut out the fabrics, translating the centimeters to inches….so far so good.

The steps for making the pouches included…..

  –  turn under an edge along the top of the pouch…..

  –  sew it down so that there were no loose threads…..

  –  fold the piece in half, WRONG sides together (this messed with my mind at first) and sew down one edge and across the bottom…..

  –  turn the bag inside out…..

  –  and then sew again around the edges to once again enclose the raw edges….

Now on the first one, I somehow had in my mind that it was supposed to be folded lengthwise, and I completely finished the sewing before I stopped and realized that there was NO way it could be used…..

I originally thought I would just throw it away but decided instead to cut out the stitching and cut it down to a smaller size.

In the end I have five Joey Pouches to send….

Hope they enjoy them…..

If you want to join in, the website is HERE….