52 craft projects // lens pouches

It feels like it's been a while since I've written a 52 craft projects post. It's not like I haven't done anything crafty in the past weeks. It's just that I feel like these projects should be more personal and challenging than just one of those 'hey, I needed a last minute gift and made a quick zipper pouch' projects.

I made these two lens pouches for my dad's birthday earlier this week. He's a great photographer and he's been complaining about needing a proper solution for storing and transporting his lenses. So one rainy day(we've had lots of them recently...) I invited my mom over for a sewing day to make these two lens pouches and a tote my mom gave my dad for his birthday.

Sewing the pouches turned out much harder than expected:
- my mom brought the 'wrong' lens so I had to call my dad and casually ask him what lenses he owns so I could check their measurements online to make sure the pouches fit perfectly.
- my dad decided to drop by spontaneously. My mom hid all the stuff in random places in my room while I stalled him at the door. Luckily he didn't stay long ;)
- we had to walk to a fabric store (the sun was shining all day but about 5 minutes after we left my apartment it started to rain...) and they didn't have all the stuff we needed so we had to improvise and my mom couldn't finish her tote.
- in the afternoon we got a call that the toilet in my grandma's apartment broke so she had to go there to fix it. So I sewed the tote while my mom practiced her 'homeowner skills' ;)

We finished the lens pouches in time and my dad loves them - yay. They weren't very much fun to sew thought; cutting all the round bottoms was pretty annoying and time consuming without proper tools. Also, calculating all the measurements wasn't much fun either but I guess paying attention in math classes in middle school paid off because I got it right ;)

We used my very favorite echino camera fabric and linen as outer fabrics and two different polka dot fabrics as linings. There is a very thick interfacing between the two layers and we cut out circles from an old camping mat for the bottom. We added snap hooks to both pouches for convenience.

I love the combination of linen and echino fabrics. Kokka fabrics are my favorite!
Aren't handmade, personalized gifts the best?
This is project #15 of 52 craft projects I'm attempting to complete in 2013.
You can see all the other projects I've complete so far here.