That Handmade Touch book hop

Today is my stop on the book hop for That Handmade Touch, a stylish and practical book by Svetlana Sotak.

I have been reading Svetlana’s blog for years now and feel as if I know her well despite us never having met IRL. I also enjoy her beautifully restrained Instagram feed full of gorgeous bag and pouch projects alongside incredibly useful video tutorials of various techniques.

So I was delighted to receive her book from the publishers Lucky Spool and to be asked to be part of the book hop.

As most of you know I do love a pouch and I also love learning new techniques.  So I decided to try the Pleated Pouch and chose this plant pot fabric by Dashwood Studios.  It’s the sort of restrained palette that I thought Svetlana would approve of!

Svetlana encourages us to use leather for straps and detailing in the book and has great tips about this.  I managed to find some scraps from an old hand bag that I used to make the thin strap here.

I often struggle to read patterns (which is why I tend to just make things up as I go along!) but the instructions for this pouch were very clear and had great accompanying photos.

There is a slight error in the cutting instructions though.

Svetlana has pointed the error out a few times in various posts but it is worth mentioning again here. the lining piece says cut 9″ x 11″ but it should read 9″ x 12″.

I enjoyed choosing the different contrasting fabrics for this pouch and I loved the way it was constructed.  At first I was surprised at the length of the zip and confused about how it would all work, but it is actually very clever and well thought through and I learnt a lot from making this project. It’s the perfect size for taking all my favourite tools and notions to classes.

I liked making it so much I made a second one!

This time I let myself go with this fun tiger fabric, also from Dashwood Studios. It is part of their Christmas range but I think it could be used all year round.

I think this might end up as a pencil case. I treated myself to some new artist pencils the other day for a new project I have embarked on (more on this in a few months!) and I feel they need a special place to live.

I can see how these would become very addictive! But there are so many other projects in the book I want to try too.

Svetlana loves a bit of Scrappy QAYG and has a wonderful zippy pouch that Jeni Baker made for her stop on the tour here. I also fancy the big stitch pillows and pretty much all of the bags!

I would thoroughly recommend That Handmade Touch and am very pleased to have my own copy.  You can follow along with the rest of the book hop (it just started this week) via Svetlana’s IG feed here (check out her story highlight for more info).