This little whimsical lace and blue-cream fabric pouch started out from some leftover fabric remnants. I’m always on the lookout for small projects that I can make from leftover remnants of fabrics that I’ve saved from my numerous craft projects. I’m a sucker when it comes to fabrics and could never pass up a beautiful piece of fabric I really like, no matter how small. The bad part is that I could never throw away small leftover pieces of fabric. A few years back, I painted a tree of life for my niece’s wedding and it got me thinking about giving her a small handmade token of some kind, since we don’t have any heirloom piece in our family.

One of the traditions that came to mind was “something borrowed, something blue”. This is a tradition that dates back to the Victorian era, and each word in the famous poem really has a warm and touching meaning. So I decided to make her something blue, and not the more traditional things like jewelry, a hanky or a piece of clothing. I decided to make her this small simple keepsake and a bit of an abstract pouch (pictured above) that could be used to insert the traditional silver sixpence coin or any small silver piece, her favorite fragrance flower pedals or even potpourri. The pretty blue and cream floral print fabric is from a vintage fabric I reclaimed from an old dress.

I loved the floral print of this blue and cream colored dress, and carefully cut the dress into 4″ x 4″ squares, being careful to cut around the flower clusters in the fabric’s pattern. I folded the square in half, sewed the edges together to form a small pouch, cut a blue heart shape from a reclaimed pair of blue jeans, another (slightly larger) heart shape from a cream colored textured cotton fabric, and cut a small white piece of lace on which to rest the blue denim heart. Once I sewed and tacked these pieces together, I took a small cream colored fresh water pearl (leftover from another craft project) and sewed it in the center of the denim heart, again sewing through all the fabric layers to keep everything together.

Although I used small beautiful remnant fabrics and the pearl for this project, a special and meaningful gift can be created from any kind fabrics or even reclaimed pieces of clothing you love.