How to Sew a Beach Towel Zipper Pouch

You know those little things that always end up loose at the bottom of your beach bag, like sunscreen, bug spray, lip balm, or hair ties? This project fixes that. It's a small zippered pouch made entirely from a single beach towel, and it comes together in well under an hour. No lining, no pattern, no complicated steps. Just a cute and practical little bag you'll actually use all summer.

This is Part 1 of our Summer Bag Series. If you're new to sewing bags, this is the perfect place for a beginner sewist to start. I’ll walk to through every step. You can follow the written instructions with images here or go to the tutorial video on YouTube.

• 1 beach towel (any size — you only need a portion of it)
• 1 zipper, 14 inches or longer (longer zippers are fine, you can cut them easily; shorter is not possible with this tutorial)
• Matching thread (regular sewing machine thread, or serger thread if you have a serger at hand)

• Scissors or a rotary cutter + ruler
• Fabric marker or chalk
• Sewing clips or pins
• Sewing machine (and a serger if you have one, more on that below)

A note on clips vs. pins: Terry cloth is loopy and shifty, which means pins tend to either pop out or catch on the loops and distort your seam line. Sewing Clips grip the layers cleanly without snagging. They're the right tool for this fabric.

A note on sergers: I use a serger with four threads throughout this project because towelling sheds, and since there's no lining, a serged seam gives the inside of the bag a much neater finish. You can use a serger to finish edges, but if you use four threads, it sews the seams as well. If you don't have a serger, you can use your regular sewing machine to sew the seams and then finish the edges with another row of stitches as well to keep things tidy inside. It just takes a little more time. Finish your raw edges with a zigzag stitch or an overcast stitch and an overcast presser foot. The combo of the overcast foot and stitch looks more like a serger finishing than a zigzag stitch. More information on this technique can be found in the blog Use your Home Sewing Machine as a Serger.

Measure and mark two rectangles on your towel, each 14 inches wide by 10 inches tall. Cut them both out..

If your towel has a directional pattern (stripes, a border print, a bold motif) now is a good moment to think about how you want the finished bag to look. When the bag is open and lying flat, both panels will face outward from the zipper. If you want both panels to show the same stripe or the same part of the print, make sure you're cutting them so they'll mirror each other. If you pin them in opposite orientations and open the bag, you'll have one pink stripe meeting the zipper and one red stripe, which might be exactly what you want, but worth a moment's thought before you cut.

Take one of your panels and lay it right side up. Place your zipper face down on top of it, lining up the zipper tape with the top 14-inch edge of the fabric. Clip along the entire top edge to hold everything in place. Trim the tail of your zipper now if it is longer than the fabric pieces

Take this to your machine and sew (or serge) along that top edge, stitching through the fabric and the zipper tape together. Then finish the edges, if you are using a sewing machine.

Once that seam is done, flip the zipper so it's now right side up and the fabric panel folds away behind it. Topstitch along the full length of the panel with a sewing machine, close to the zipper. This flattens everything down and keeps the fabric from catching in the zipper teeth later.

Your zipper is now attached to one panel and sitting right side up. Take your second panel and place it right sides together against the first. Both fabric panels are facing each other, with the zipper sandwiched between them at the top. Line up the top edges and the side edges carefully, then add clips all the way across the top.

Sew or serge along this top edge just as you did in Step 2 and finish the edges. When you open the bag out, the zipper will sit neatly between the two panels. Topstitch the seam.

Open the bag out flat with right sides together. Both panels are facing inward. Line up the bottom edges and sew or serge along the bottom and finish the edges.

Fold the piece so the bottom seam you just sewed sits directly on top of where the zipper sits. The zipper is in the middle. The zipper seam and the bottom seam are now aligned on top of each other, right sides still facing in.

Before you sew the side seams, open your zipper partway. If you close the bag completely without doing this first, you won't be able to reach inside to turn it right side out.

Clip or pin both side edges together and sew or serge down each side and finish the edges.

This is the step that turns the bag from flat to three-dimensional, and it takes about two minutes.

At each of the four corners, cut out a 2-inch × 2-inch square. Cut all four corners.

Once the squares are cut, pinch each corner so the two cut edges meet and form a straight line. The side seam and the bottom seam (or zipper seam) will line up with each other at the centre of that point. That's how you know it's aligned correctly. Clip the edges together and sew straight across. Repeat on all four corners. Finish the edges.

Reach through the open zipper, grip the bag, and pull it right side out. Use a blunt point (a pen cap, the eraser end of a pencil, or a Sewer's Magic Wand) to gently push each corner out fully.

And that's it. A zippered beach pouch made entirely from a towel, no lining required, with a flat base that actually stands up in your beach bag.

Terry cloth is satisfying to sew with once you know its quirks. A few things that help:

Clips over pins, every time. The loops on terry cloth snag on pin shafts and can shift your fabric layers before you even get to the machine. Sewing Clips sit flat, grip without catching, and make the whole process much less frustrating.

Use a walking foot if you have one. Terry cloth can creep, the top layer wants to feed faster than the bottom. A Walking Foot moves both layers at the same rate and gives you a clear view of your seam line through the open toe.

Slow down at seam crossings. When your needle has to cross over a thick seam junction, lower the needle by hand for the first few stitches, or use a Bulky Seam Jumper to level out the height difference so your presser foot stays flat and your stitches stay even.

Don't skip the topstitching on the zipper. It looks optional, but it does two things: keeps the fabric from getting caught in the zipper teeth, and makes the whole pouch look finished rather than homemade.

If this project got you hooked on sewing with towelling, here are a few more to keep you going:

• How to Make a Hooded Towel Beach Poncho - same type of fabric, a bigger project: a full changing poncho from two beach towels
• Easy DIY Hair Towel Wrap - a 15-minute project using terry or microfibre

Other free sewing projects can be found on the Madam Sew Blog or in this blog that lists 50 free sewing projects.

And stay tuned! Part 2 of the Summer Bag Series is coming up next. If you like the farmer's market as much as we do, you'll want to come back for it.

Happy Sewing!

Leah