Zip It Up bags

A couple of weeks ago I watched Tula Pink's video launching her new black and white fabric line - Linework (It won't be available for months yet, so don't panic).  Towards the end of the video Tula showed two Zip It Up! bags she had made.  I thought they looked amazing so I dashed off and ordered the pattern from the Ribbon Rose in Auckland.

Here's a link to Tula's video.  The bags appear at about 22 minutes in.

Of course we can't get Linework yet, so I ordered some half yards of Tula's Homemade range for my bag.

I hadn't seen Homemade in real life, but I was very happy with it when it arrived.  I love how green the "Cut Once" fabric is, and I was very impressed that the squares really are 1", just like on my ruler.

I machine quilted the exterior with a pretty pink Aurifil, using a design from Jacqui Gering's Walk book.

A secret pocket on the back

The pattern has a pocket on the front of the outside, and then two pockets on the inside - one mesh and one vinyl.  I didn't like the idea of sewing vinyl on my sewing machine, so I made two mesh pockets, and I changed the exterior pocket from the front to the back.

And then I decided to make a smaller second Zip It Up! bag while I was at it.

The secret pocket on the back

I used a different design from Jacqui Gering's Walk book to quilt the Pokemon fabric. I enjoyed experimenting with different quilting designs.

The selvages on this Pokemon fabric are great, so I decided to incorporate them too.  (The fabric was purchased in Japan some years ago.)

Yes, it's a Gameboy Advance! A Zelda special edition.

So that's my latest experimentation with a Pattern by Annie.  Annie has so many great patterns.  Maybe I'll do a wrap up of all the bags I've made from her patterns in my next post.

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Kantha quilting

Have you heard of Kantha quilting?

 My online friend Shruti Dandekar says:

Kantha is one of the traditional styles of handwork popular in Eastern India - especially the state of West Bengal - and Bangladesh. It is used to either add embroidery to fabric or to quilt.

You can read more about it here in Wikipedia.

This month Aurifil have asked some of the Aurifil Artisans to experiment with Kantha quilting and Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

I've decided to use my variegated 12wt Aurifil threads on this fat quarter of Kaffe's fabric called Busy Lizzy.  I'm quilting the whole fat quarter with Kantha quilting, and then I'm going to turn it into a pouch - or maybe even two.

Kantha quilting is very relaxing.  You don't need to follow straight lines.  I use a hoop because that's how I quilt and I struggle to do it without a hoop.  It was just easier for me to pop it in a hoop.

I even decided to add a squiggle to mine, so I used a hera marker to mark the squiggle, but will then just stitch along side it with more free form lines.  You can see my marked squiggle very faintly in the photo below.

If you're wondering which needles I use (John James Chenille size 24), which thimble I use (Clover Open Sided), or anything else, you can find details of all my favourite hand quilting accessories at the bottom of this post here. 

I'm still undecided about which zip to use on my pouch.  You're probably thinking that I've got too many options, but I do love zips with round pullers.  They remind me of a ski jacket my mum made for me in about 1978.  I loved that ski jacket with it's white zip with chunky teeth and a round puller.  The pockets even had white zips with round pullers too!

Updated: I bought these zips from Studio Mio in Australia https://studiomio.com.au/zippers/

So that's what I'm up to this week.  Oh, and trying to catch the sunrise because we're having some beauties at the moment.

What have you been up to this week?  Feel free to link up a blog post below.

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