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This quilt is called Serious

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Greetings from the Tilkunviilaaja studio! May I introduce to you my first quilt finish of 2026: Serious quilt (Totinen in Finnish). She is basking in the wintry sunshine on the snow that is full of children’s footprints. We were doing the photoshoot on the top of a small hill where children come to go down it on their sleds. I saw a quilt like this in completely different colours and decided to make a version with a very dark background. My 16-blocks would also feature certain coloured squares from corner to corner. I knew that I would find enough fabrics for this quilt in my stash. These were the first blocks sewn, early in October 2025. At this point, I was very inspired! Indeed, I had no shortage of suitable fabrics for the squares: And yet, even with a sizeable stash, I could not help but buy an exciting mystery bag from the local quilt shop Tilkkunen. I happened to see that a limited number of such bags was available and I just could not help myself. This is what the bag looke...
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Simple zipper bag: How many mistakes can one person make?

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I’m a veteran zipper bag maker. I’ve sewn and documented a total of 360 zipper pouches, and I still make mistakes now and then. In fact, I seem to be very creative when it comes to making mistakes because I’ve managed to invent at least twenty different ones. If you’ve ever wondered whether you are the only one unpicking seams from a seemingly simple project, this post is for you. 1 – The rookie mistake Whenever I make this mistake, I think that a person who has sewn so many zipper bags really should know better already. But of course I’ve made the rookie mistake and sewn around the bag and lining pieces and forgotten to open the zipper. This happened, for example, when I was making the Grandma/Mummi zipper bag, which poses here in its finished state: The only way to recover from this mistake is to say hello to the seam ripper! One must unpick enough of the stitching so that one can open the zipper at least partly – to be able to turn the bag right side out. 2 – Pin mistake Sor...
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Opera zipper bag - from start to finish

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Greetings from my quilt studio (also called "the sewing table")! This is an unusually detailed description of how one of my zipper bags - the one called Opera / Ooppera came to life. A couple of weeks ago, I was going out to an evening do and noticed – again – that neither of my two trusted small purses went well with what I was wearing. I picked up one of my zipper bags, which was an ok choice. However, I felt that I should have a more unicoloured one. Already on the next day, I went through my smaller scraps and from one container, picked up the smallest ones. I made two stacks, one for deeper, another for lighter shades of red/pink. Then I cut a few shop receipts narrower and used them as guides to sew long-ish, scrappy rectangular pieces. My original idea was to build a bag with one darker side and one lighter side. Because I found two precious, long-saved pieces of Tula Pink fabrics, I ended up having a combination of darker and lighter pieces on both side pie...
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Splendid colour tips for quilting: Turquoise in quilts

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Today’s post concentrates on turquoise colour in quilts. You will get a tip or two on what to watch out for and many examples of how to use the turquoise colour successfully. The name "turquoise" for the semi-precious stone and its colour comes from the French word "turquois," which means "Turkish". This refers to the stone’s trading origins. (Source: https://www.thefactsite.com/turquoise-facts/ ) Turquoise has an element of both blue and green, and thus it is a close relative to them both. The colour is often associated with inventiveness and creativity. What to beware when using turquoise? To many of us, turquoise brings tropical waters to mind. A bright turquoise together with other bright colours may make the quilt surface resemble a Hawaiian shirt. (Though this may be the quilter’s goal of course.) I planned to create a stunningly beautiful zipper pouch from a combination of turquoise and a lovely red, but the result stunned me in a different...
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