Quilted zipper bag called Zed

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Greetings from the Tilkunviilaaja studio, where I have produced the sixth quilted zipper bag of the year! The name of this zipper bag is Zed (or Zeta for the Finnish-speaking audience). This picture shows the pattern which inspired the name:
Another inspiration for this name was the fact that even though I’ve made more than 360 zipper bags, not a single one so far has had a name beginning with Z. (This is small wonder because it is not a natively Finnish letter.)

Zed is a product of my less orderly scrappy play. I found the other panel – the one with the shape that may remind one of the letter Z – from a scrap bag where I store orphan blocks and smaller, block-like beginnings, and turned a small pile of leftovers found on my cutting table into a sort-of-matching surface:
If you read the recent post on my memorable quilt portraits, you may recognise the wooden pallet from the bonus photo. It provides an excellent background for bright-coloured quilted items!

You may also notice that this time, my photos do not show the Tilkunviilaaja tag which I use instead of watermarking my photos. I was in a hurry to get the photos taken before the clouds covered the sun that I couldn’t take the time to go back inside for the tag.

It’s funny that I much prefer the other side when I look at this zipper bag with my eyes. Yet, this zed-like shape looks so nice in my photo:
I love spring! Forget-me-nots and dandelions bring colour to our lawn which we won’t mow for weeks, to offer nourishment for the buzzing insects who like weed-flowers just as well as the finer ones.

In this photo, you can see the quilting that I chose for this side of the bag: an angular spiral that echoed the edge of the dark triangle on the surface. It is one of the 21 easy quilting ideas that I've shared in an earlier post. I like continuous lines and straight stitching because I know they will finish neat. With free-motion, it’s not always so.
The strategic measurements of the Zed quilted zipper bag are:
  • Width at the top: 24 cm (around 9,5”)
  • Height: 17,5 cm (almost 7”)
  • Width of the bottom: 8 cm (around 3”)
Zed is of Open series, and this photo shows how well it does open:
The lining is a leftover from trimming one of my quilts – I chose it as backing fabric, but I can’t remember which quilt it was. It feels more like flannel than a quilting cotton fabric.

And here you could see the fussy-cut hexagon piece that finishes the zipper end – but you can’t see it very well because it is in shadow. Sorry! I liked this photo though!
One more portrait. Again, the focus piece – the Zed zipper bag – should be prominently visible, but the sun catches only my violets.
What making the Zed zipper bag reminded me of is that I much prefer order over haphazard and squares or rectangles over triangles. I’m mildly happy with the results, but the surfaces would look better in my eyes without the overly angled lines.

All the same, Zed is done, and that is better than being perfect! On to next quilting adventures!


If you want to follow what I’m working on and what I’ve finished (and get some quilting tips, too), you can subscribe to my biweekly newsletter here: https://tilkunviilaaja.blogspot.com/p/subscribe-today.html

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