Yesterday the embroidery machine got to do some more work: an in-the-hoop pouch with a zipper. The regular sewing machine got to rest this time.
The pouch closed up. The project includes the quilting stitches on the front.
One thing learned from this, though, it's really important to pay careful attention to the photos and the words of the instructions. I had to redo some things because they were stitched incorrectly. Also learned the hard way that when restarting after a birds nest or similar mess up, it's a good idea to take the hoop bar back to home position and re-position it after doing the "backspace through the messed up stitches" trick. I have officially broken my first needle on the new machine.
The solid green corner is a piece of linen, which I backed with iron on interfacing before putting into the project. The iron on interfacing has been working well as the first stabilizing bit in the black linen coasters. It worked well here, too. (It's one of the knit ones on that page.) I used the regular sewing thread (50 wt) instead of embroidery thread as there really isn't any thread visible other than the quilting stitches. The project called for cutaway stabilizer, and I now know that it's maybe a good plan to trim that layer a little more than the others at the end when removing the project from the hoop. Final closing stitches: ladder stitch, by hand.
The small pouch as shown will hold a cell phone, at least some sizes, but I suspect my Otterbox cover doesn't go through the opening very well. YMMV. If, like me, you've abandoned your fat, heavy wallet for a little pouch to hold money and cards, this would work very nicely.
