Magic Deck Pouches

I've recently become involved with an exceedingly nerdy collectable card game, Magic: The Gathering. Some would say that Magic is this generation's D&D. Given the extreme nerdiness of my boy and my friends as well as my fondness for games of strategy, it was really only a matter of time before I got sucked into it. The very very basic premise of the game is to build a deck of 60 cards (from the 10,000+ cards that have been printed over the years) and play your deck against an opponent (or opponents), trying to kill him before he kills you. Of course, the rules get head-spinningly complicated, but that's the basic idea. Google it if you really want to know more.

"Now, Anna," you may ask, "What does this have to do with the domestic endeavors which you promised would be the focus of your blog?" Relax, I'm getting to it. After spending hours painstakingly building my very first deck (a red-blue Madness deck, for all you Magic players out there), I realized that I had nowhere to put it. My boy has a fancy carrying case with a foam insert, in which he can fit 14 decks and a big ol' pile of dice. That seemed a bit excessive for my solitary deck. But still, was I just going to wrap a rubber band around it? Certainly not. I suppose I could have bought a deck box for it, but where's the fun in that? Also, being unemployed has been encouraging me to do things as cheaply as possible these days. So, I designed this:

Neat, huh? The fabric is something I had lying around, I believe it was a $1/yard purchase from Walmart some time ago. The lining is just plain ol' canvas, which is stiff enough to help it keep its shape. I chose the pink because it's the most ridiculous thing I had on hand, and it matches the sleeves I have on my deck:

Now, this may not be the preferred aesthetic for many Magic players, but I quite enjoy the sillyness that is a pink and black polka-dotted deck pouch. Anyway, after I had successfully executed this, I realized that many of my friends were carrying their decks around in sad store-bought contraptions, or worse, rubber bands. Conveniently, one of my friends had a birthday coming up. An opportunity to brighten her life and warm her heart, as well as try out my design on some other cool fabrics I had on hand! 

I tried my best to document the process with photographs, but as this was a traveling project (it accompanied me pretty much all around the city), some steps got left out. In any case, what follows is my best attempt at a scientific documentation and tutorial on the process.

1) Choose two fabrics that you like, one for the pouch and one for the lining. I found this really cool faux stamped leather in my pile of extra fabric pieces. For the lining I used some black suede.

2) Cut out your pieces from the lining fabric. I used three pieces to form the pouch; a 1.75"x 10.75" piece for the bottom and sides, a 3.25"x 4.25"piece for the front, and a 3.25"x 7.75" piece for the back and flap. *

3) With a ruler, mark a 1/4" border around the wrong side of your pieces in pencil. This will dictate where you sew your seams, especially if you're doing it by hand (which I did). I'd recommend cutting off the corners, where the lines intersect. 

4) Determine the mid-points of the bottom piece and the back piece, and sew together along the 1/4" seam line, with the wrong sides facing out as shown above.

5) Repeat step 4 with the front piece, attaching it in the same way to the bottom piece. You'll end up with a strange cross-looking thing that looks nothing like a pouch yet.*

6) Sew the remaining edges together to form the four side corners of the pouch. 

7) Repeat steps 2-6 with the outside fabric. At this point it may be useful to press or sew the seams open, so they lay nicely. *

8) Turn the outer pouch right-side out, and slip the liner into the outer pouch so that the wrong sides/seams of both parts are pressed flush against each other and out of sight. 

9) Fold the top edges of the front and sides of the outer pouch over the lining (it may be useful to snip off 1/4" off the top of the lining for easy folding) and (neatly) sew all the way around.

10) Repeat step 9 with the flap. For both of my pouches I decided to cut off the corners of the flap to make it less square, but a square flap could also work.

11) To close the flap, you have a couple options. For my first pouch I hand-sewed a button hole into the flap and attached a button on the front of the pouch, as per directions I found here. For the second one, I simply made a loop with some fancy cord and sewed it onto the top edge of the flap, then looped it around an equally fancy button sewn onto the front of the pouch.

Here's the finished product:

Notes:

-For my first pouch I had the bottom/sides piece 1/2" wider, so it was 2.25"x 10.75". Even on my deck with sleeves, it still has a bit of extra room. This new size should work a little better, especially on an unsleeved deck. 

-After sewing the front and back pieces to the bottom, it helps to make a small 1/4" snip on the bottom piece right where the corner is cut off of the front/back piece, for ease in sewing up the sides.

- In order for the lining to lay nicely inside of the pouch, I had to sew all of the seams open on both pieces. It would have been much easier to do this as I went instead of when they were already constructed, as the bottom edges are quite hard to get to once you've sewn the whole thing together. I would have pressed them open instead, but the darn things are so small!

I will probably have to make more of these as I build new decks, as they are tons of fun and a pretty quick little project. Also, if I know you and you play Magic, odds are you'll be getting one of these for Christmas.