Tom's wash-bag

This year, I gave my team at work handmade presents for Christmas. Two of the ladies in my team received quillows for Christmas. One lady received a glasses case and another lady received a jewellery pouch. One of my team members is a great young man named Tom. When I was trying to work out what to give to each team member, I realised that the stuff I make is all very 'girlie' (handbags, purses etc) and that I had very little in the way of masculine fabric. My fabric stash (aside from the fabric I normally use for lining pouches and bags with - ie the polka dots and the odd striped fabric) was very much female oriented.

Tom's a keen swimmer and he plays water-polo very regularly too. A casual discussion few weeks before Christmas gave me the idea of making Tom a zippered pouch or wash-bag for his swim stuff like shower gel etc. I found the outer fabric for this wash-bag in my local quilting shop. Here's the wash-bag I made for Tom for Christmas. Isn't that a great fabric for a sporty kind of wash-bag?



I cut one piece of outer fabric, one lining (polka dots from my stash), one iron-on interfacing and one piece of fusible Thermolam fleece, all measuring 14 inches by 16 inches. The zip I used came from my stash too and is a 16-inch (roughly) open-ended slightly chunky nylon zip.



The inside seams have been enclosed in bias-tape. I also cut a 4 inch by 7 inch piece of fabric to make the handle.



The finished wash-bag measured approximately 10.5 inches long, 5 inches wide and 3 inches deep. I had sufficient fabric leftover to make myself a washbag exactly like this for my gym stuff too and it happily holds my sweat bands, knee support, weightlighting gloves and a 50ml sports drink bottle. I think this is a great size boxy zippered pouch for all kinds of purposes and I plan on making a couple more to hold my crochet / looming projects. I might even try to see if I can put a photo tutorial together when making one of these. What do you think?