Cute, adorable and (almost) useless

I am not sure where I first came across these adorable macaron coin purses, but the website I found them on linked to this tutorial on the Craft Passion blog.  I thought they were cute when I first saw them, but really didn't think about making them myself.  I think I have mentioned before, but I really do not sew.

Somehow over the next few weeks I started thinking of macaron coin purses at various (mostly odd) times of the day - while driving to work, as I was falling asleep, walking out of a meeting, etc.  Next thing I knew I was googling the supplies needed to make one...  Luckily for me, our local Jo-Anne's fabric store had all of the necessary supplies.

This is the first macaron* I made.  It's a bit... wonky.  There really is no other way to describe it.  I had read the comments in the tutorial and I saw that a nylon zipper was not recommended.  Shortening a metal zipper seemed too daunting at that time so I went with a nylon zipper when I could not find a proper length metal zipper.  The wonkiness is really apparent in the first picture.  My macaron is definitely crooked!

Making it was challenging to say the least.  When trying to sew, I felt like I was not only all thumbs, but all left-hand thumbs and at one point managed to sew part of the macaron to one of my fingers...  Not pleasant.

Since my sewing ability is pretty much non-existent, I had a hard time figuring out how the pieces will connect when done.  As you can see in the picture above, I have some really ugly stitches in the blue band.

Sewing the button covers to the zipper was very fiddly (and it didn't help that I was googling how to make the stitch as I was trying to sew...).  I do have to say though, that when I wasn't happy with the first few tries, I ripped them out and started again.  Normally when I make something for the first time I just push through until I'm done and don't really worry about how it looks like.  The macaron was a little different - I kept positioning the button covers wrong so I had a hard time closing the zipper.

All in all, I guess I am happy with my first macaron.  I can open and close it and it only looks wonky from a few angles:)  It tends to look better when opened up.

About a month later I was in another big box store and saw that they had all the supplies to make a macaron including a 7" metal zipper.  I was intrigued by trying to shorten a zipper so I decided to go for it.  Luckily I still had (a lot!) of fabric scarps left over, since I had bought one of the quilting packets.

Shortening the zipper was fun!  Playing with pliers and wire snippers is so much fun and I felt a lot less awkward than when trying to sew:)  Once the zipper was shortened, the rest of the macaron was a little more straight forward than the first one.  It helped to know what parts will be visible to avoid ugly seams in the finished product.  I think the inside tab looks better in the second one.

I agree with the comments in the initial tutorial that the metal zipper looks better.  Unfortunately I was unable to find a metal zipper on a cotton tape which was the recommendation.  I suspect I will have to order online.  The one I bought was on a nylon tape.  Despite the nylon tape, it still looks better than an all-nylon zipper.  As an aside, I had never thought about metal and nylon zippers before, not to mention zipper tapes.  It's amazing what little things you pick up when trying something!

Overall the second macaron is a lot less wonky than the first one.  After I made the second one, I realized that one of the reasons it looks a bit funny is that in order to maximize the space inside, I sew the button covers kind of far from the teeth of the zipper.  While that does maximize the space, it also decreases the cuteness of the macaron.  If I make another one, I will make a conscious effort to sew closer to the teeth.  But not so close that I won't be able to close the zipper which was an issue I had repeatedly when making the first one.  The main issue I had with the second one is that I sewed the ribbon loop to the zipper too far back and you can see the white stitches.  It's quite ugly, but by the time I noticed, I was pretty far into the macaron and decided not to change it.  If I make another one, I will keep an eye on that.

And now for the big questions - what does one do with these adorable things?  I use mine as mini jewelry boxes.  One for a necklace I need to have fixed and one for a set of earrings that are not in my current rotation.  As cute as they are, I really cannot think of much else to do with them...

These little guys are very fun to make, which means a lot coming from me!  Although sewing the button covers to the zipper is a bit fiddly and took me multiple tries for each macaron, I find the initial sewing involved with the getting the zipper set up to be more fiddly.  Each macaron took me about two evenings to complete.  One evening for the zipper and one evening for assembling everything together. I am sure that for someone comfortable with sewing the learning curve would not be as steep and the final product would look better on the first try.

Each macaron is ~ 1.5 inches in diameter.

*Typing "macaron coin purse" is a bit tedious and I think of them as "macarons" not "macaron coin purses", especially since I don't use them as a coin purse!