Switching Things Up

 Having made about all the churn dash blocks I care to make - for a while, anyway - I took some time Sunday and Monday to make a few zipper pouches. I really had no prior plan to do such work, but I happened to see a video tutorial by the popular Jenny Doan of Missouri Star Quilt Company. I have watched dozens of her videos, and this one was so appealing for several different reasons that I just knew I had to make a few.

 

The reason for the video was to show quilters and sewists how easy it is to use cute, fancy zippers - which they happen to carry in their story. Well, I already had a stash of 8 or 10 of fancy zippers, so I watched the video to see how I could use them.

 

These first two are made with the same two fabrics; the linings are the other fabric. So that took care of my 2 light pink zippers. Next up was to pull fabrics for 2 darker pink zippers, and 2 royal blue zippers. Honestly, I took forever deciding on fabric combinations. That part took far longer than the actual cutting, sewing, and pressing of the pouches.

In addition to the combinations in the top picture, I have all the remaining fabric decisions made, as well, so I am ready for a marathon session of zipping through these zipper pouches. 

Happy Quilting, Friends!

 

Zipper Bag/Zipper Lesson

Serendipity describes how our zipper lesson came to be yesterday when Claudia was here. She requested a lesson on learning to sew in a zipper, and I had been wanting for the longest time to make a little zipper bag that I had seen online. Consequently, we had a happy meeting of the minds, and came away with a couple of nifty little bags.

The fabric for outer and lining bag parts were fat quarters from my stash. I had a couple of 9" zippers, too, but Claudia brought a 22" zipper, so we had a lesson about cutting a zipper down to size, and saving the end, because zipper pulls are available in sewing stores.

After we cut our 7"x 9" pieces, we began zipper application. It was not a smooth lesson. We faced issues that we eventually attributed to using inferior thread. It may have been something else, but we did finally get things going, and we finished our bags.

These bags are fresh off the sewing machine - not even pressed yet. It is billed as a 15-minute bag, but I think you might have to get your learning curve out of the way before expecting those speedy results. Anyway, we set these aside, and proceeded with our  quilting plans, which I will bring you tomorrow. Here are a couple more views of my bag after pressing.

I will definitely be making more of these bags; I think an assembly line of them would be the way to go.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

A Zipper Bag

I had a fabulous day in Grove City yesterday at "The Barn" - that lovely quilty place of Mary's. The project for the day was to make a Zipper Bag. I met a couple of quilters and got reacquainted with another. And of course, Mary, our hostess, was as gracious and helpful as always, and she fed us a pretty awesome lunch, too. Throw in the gorgeous spring day - Mary opened the big barn door for the first time this season - and it all added up to a really wonderful day.

So, here is the sample bag Mary had for us to see. She said she made it in an afternoon. I think this is possible, but when one is spending as much time with the seam ripper as she is sewing, it was clear I was going to take longer. In fact, I worked on it from about 9:30 - 4:00 with only a break for lunch. My brain just wasn't receptive to cutting and reading directions, for some reason. I felt like Mary had to hold my hand most of the way through it.

The bag has an 18" zipper for the outer closure and three 9" zippers for inner pockets. I love how colorful Mary went with her zippers. The possibilities for playfulness with fabric and zippers are endless.

My choices were limited because I used zippers I had on hand. I thought I had a big variety, but in the sizes I needed I was limited to black and white. So, I found my stash of Morris Apprentice fabric (left over from the Tapestry quilt), and chose my bag colors from there. I think I like it, too.

My 18" zipper was metal, which looks okay with the silvery gray in my outer print. The one white zipper was used on the middle pocket, so it looks like it was all in the original "plan" - ha! Happy accident - that's the reality. :D

I was thinking most of the morning that I'd NEVER do another one of these bags, but by the end of the day, I was planning on making more - sisters, girlfriends, daughters - I think most women believe in the philosophy that one can never have too many bags.

Here are the bags made by my 2 new acquaintances, Jolene and Kay.

Jolene's zipper bag.

Kay's zipper bag.

I will consider making another one. I think I worked out the brain cramps and kinks enough that I could accomplish the task more quickly next time. I will need to invest in some zippers, however.

Tomorrow I will share some of the show and tell projects we saw at the barn.

Happy Quilting, Friends!