I sewed up this badge holder for Quilt Market this weekend and thought I’d share a quick tutorial with you all.
It was inspired by a badge my friend Felice made, who was inspired to make hers based on one our other friend Stephanie made. I love the idea of a protected, zipper compartment for my cash/credit cards, but I also wanted a pocket on the backside to keep my phone for easy access. And as I’m notoriously bad with damaging my phones, I decided to quilt my fabric pieces with layers of batting instead of using interfacing.
Here’s what you’ll need:
Fabric
Batting
Clear vinyl (mine is from Joann’s, in the upholstery fabric section)
6″ zipper (or larger and cut it down)
Seam allowance: 3/8″
Here are all the parts:
1. Quilt and cut out your various pieces of fabric and plastic.
You can quilt your fabric before you cut your pieces or after. I quilted mine after and there was a tiny bit of distortion/shrinkage after quilting but these pieces are so small that with a 3/8″ seam allowance it didn’t really make a difference after all was said and done.
Front top: 5.5″ x 1.5″ cut 2 fabric, cut 1 batting (quilt these together)
Front base:5.5″ x 5.5″ cut 2 fabric, cut 1 batting (quilt these together)
Front Pocket binding: 1.5″ x 5.5″ cut 1 fabric
Clear Vinyl: 5.5″ x 4.5″cut 1
Back: 5.5″ x 6.5″ cut 2 fabric, cut 1 batting (quilt these together)
Back pocket: 5.5″ x 5″, cut 2 fabric, cut 1 batting (quilt these together)
Back pocket binding: 1.5″ x 5.5″ cut 1 fabric
Necks strap: 1.5″ x 21″
2. Prepare your double fold binding. Take your pocket binding pieces, and wrong sides together, press them in half lengthwise. Now open them up and press each long edge in towards the center line you just pressed.
3. Prepare your double fold neck strap. Follow the same instructions as above, but finish by top stitching close to the edge on both long sides.
4. Attach bindings to front and back pockets. Using the bindings you made in step 2, take the one you want for the front clear pocket and sew it to the top edge of the plastic piece. Make sure to sew close to the edge as shown in the assembly diagram. Do the same thing for the back pocket, sewing the binding to the top edge of the pocket piece.
5. Zipper assembly. I found this to be much easier than sewing a zipper into a pouch. The zipper I used was actually twice as long as necessary, so I just lined up the head of the zipper 3/8″ in from one edge of the pouch (just this side of the seam allowance) and let the end trail off the other side. It eventually gets cut off.
Take the top front piece and line it up face down against the edge of the face up zipper. Sew a line as close to the teeth as possible. (I used my regular foot for this and had no problems, but you can obviously use a zipper foot, too.) Press the fabric away from the zipper and top stitch close to the edge. Repeat with the bottom fabric piece.
5. Add neck straps, assemble layers and sew together! Take your neck strap and line up two ends with the top of badge front and tack edges in place by sewing a line of stitches 1/8″ from edge. Then layer your clear pocket on top of the zippered piece and make sure the neckstrap is safely away from all seam allowances.
Assemble back pieces and lay face down on top of front pieces. Helpful Hint: make sure your zipper is OPEN, you will be turning your badge holder right side out through this opening, you will be very disappointed if you don’t remember this step! 🙂
Now simply sew along all four sides with a 3/8″ seam allowance, clip your corners, zig-zag the edges and turn inside out. Gently poke out your corners with the handle end of a paint brush, a chopstick or any thin but blunt tool and you’re done. Now go tackle that trade show!
