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Overnight quilted zipper bag and the colour of November

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A week ago, my quilted zipper bag making factory produced its 17th finish this year. Here it is: Overnight / Yön yli pouch: Note its surroundings! Contrary to the common belief – that November in Finland is grey and slushy – the actual colour seems to be green, at least in the Southern Finland. You see, after a couple of rainy days, there will eventually be a bit of sun, which will then light up the lushly green lawns and the mossy spots. Things happened before Overnight was finished. I constructed the bag panels rather slowly. I was planning to add to its width and depth considerably when I suddenly noticed that I could just as well make a smaller item for a change. Here are the smallish zipper panels, quilted but not trimmed: I shot the picture on a rare day that had some sunlight. And when the bag was finished, I had to wait for a couple of days to find the next available moment of sunlight (it was brief). But I managed, and now I can present the bag in light that shows up...

What the latest Capricious zipper bag made me realise

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It’s amazing what having a goal can make one achieve. A little more than three weeks ago, I set myself the silly goal of meeting my average number of zipper bag finishes per year (22 in total). This meant that I would have to finish at least one zipper bag per week for the rest of this year. This is the fifth one, Capricious / Ailahteleva: My earlier blog post described 7 ways to come up with names for one’s quilty makes, and to name this zipper bag, I checked the Word of the Day in the Merriam-Webster lexicon pages. I didn’t pick the current Word or any of the earlier ones. Instead, I saw the word “nonchalant” in the “most looked-up words,” clicked myself to that page and continued my journey through several pages of synonyms and antonyms, until I found the word “capricious”. This seemed apt! And this is the flip side of the Capricious quilted zipper bag: You may be interested to see a picture which shows this zipper bag when it was still only a vague idea: Eventually...

Get inspired by holiday quilting projects I’ve made over the years: 11 ideas

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Today, it’s exactly seven weeks until Christmas Eve, which is the important date for us Finns who celebrate the holiday. This gives us quilters enough time, perhaps, to prepare some holiday-themed quilty makes. Here are 11 examples of things that I’ve made over the years and that an eager quilter/sewist could make for Christmas – if not this year, then some other year. 1 - Quilts and quilted wall textiles I’ve made one holiday-themed quilt and it is called Kuurankukka / Frost Flower: Except for the snowflake, I only used Christmas themed fabrics in this quilt top, and almost the whole back piece too. I had A LOT of them when I started and the stash looked just as substantial when I’d finished. Quilt details for Frost Flower Pattern: Snowflake by Modern Handcraft https://www.modernhandcraft.com/pdf-patterns/snowflake-quilt-pdf-pattern Block: Squares and half-square triangles according to the pattern Size: 175 cm x 210 cm (69” x 82,5”) Quilting: Longarm quilted by So...

Splendid colour tips for quilters: Solid-coloured fabrics in quilts

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Oh my, writing today’s splendid tips felt like a real challenge because I use solid-coloured fabrics the least in the world. However, after some deep research into my quilting history, I uncovered quite a few examples, which I hope will be helpful for you! Read on and you will learn what to watch out for when using solid-coloured fabrics in quilts, and get tips for using solids with success. I will also share my thoughts on fabrics whose colour is “nearly solid”! Why I don’t often use solids I never get an urge to buy solid fabrics because colourful, patterned fabrics attract me so much more. When I look at my stash, at least 90% of it are patterned fabrics. The only (nearly) solids I consciously buy are whites, blacks and greys. Ever since I was a child, I’ve liked patterns. For example, when I was around seven years old, I had a snake-skin patterned coat, plaid pants, striped socks and a differently striped shirt – and I would wear all of them together. And I loved flower patt...