By Linda Theil
I asked Alisa if she wanted a cosmetics bag to go with her set of Spencer Ogg Packing Pods and she said, "Duh!"
I had made her a set of the lightweight packing pods with a "layer cake" of ten-inch squares of Robert Morris reprints from Moda, and blogged about the make here at "Spencer Ogg Packing Pods". Diane Spencer Ogg also offers a free pattern for a "Cosmetic Pod" along with a video tutorial on her YouTube channel that I wanted to try.
Unlike the lightweight "Packing Pods", Spencer-Ogg recommended a sturdier fabric to give the little cosmetics box/pod some structure. She also said the pattern could be made in larger sizes by increasing the size of the free printed pattern.
I had some of the Robert Morris ten-inch squares left over from making Alisa's packing pods, that I could use to make a matching cosmetics pod. I had to piece the ten-inch squares to make a piece of fabric large enough for the one-piece pod pattern. I had increased the pattern to 120-percent of the original size, making a pattern of roughly 15 x 15-inches.
When I printed the pattern out at 120-percent, I had to tape on a half-inch wide piece of paper to the bottom of the Number-A2 pattern piece because the enlargement didn't quite fit on a piece of standard 8.5 x 11-inch paper. The pattern below shows the one-piece, cosmetics-pod pattern increased 120-percent to be laid out with the long horizontal edge of the pattern placed on the fold of fabric before cutting.
To make my fabric, I sewed two identical pieces of a directional fabric together so that one piece had the directional print facing right-way-up, and the second piece had the directional print facing upside-down. Then I sewed two identical pieces of coordinating ten-inch squares together, and cut them down the middle to make two 5 x 20-inch rectangles. Then I sewed one of the narrow, coordinating rectangless to each side of the stitched directional squares to make a 20 x 20-inch piece of fabric that I backed with medium-weight, iron-on interfacing.
When I laid the pattern out on the pieced fabric, I positioned the pattern so that the seam between the two directional pieces of fabric fell in the middle of the large indented sections of the pattern indicating where the bottom of the pod would be, so that the change in direction would be unseen on the finished pod.
The standard-size, cosmetics-pod pattern called for a 12-inch, number-five zipper; for the 120-percent sized pod, I used 15-inches of continuous zipper, and that seemed to work fine. The excess zipper is trimmed away during the construction of the pod.
It's hard to describe the pleasure of making a Spencer Ogg bag. This little pod is simple, quick, and easy to make; yet, the clever design, meticulous construction detail, and elegance of the finished piece make this pattern, like all Spencer Ogg designs, so much fun to work with.
The finished size of this 120-percent increased "Cosmetics Pod" is eleven-inches wide, by five-inches high, by three-inches deep at the bottom.
I love it.
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