Tilkunviilaaja®

Now that I’ve already introduced the Oomph quilted zipper bag to you, I can share this progress shot of my quirky quarter log cabin blocks from early 2000s waiting to become zipper bag panels. When I took the photo, I was still considering this way to pair them: However, I soon discovered that I wanted one of my zipper bags appear sort of red and the other one more blueish, so these became the panels for the “blue” zipper bag: One of my favourite phases in the zipper bag making process is when I've sewn the bag into shape and turned it right side out. I can never imagine the finished shape and size beforehand – my 3-dimensional thinking just isn’t that good. So this moment always feels like a reveal. Then, I like to smooth out the bag lining, pushing its corners into the corners of the outer piece, and continue finger-pressing both pieces away from the zipper. I could use clips to hold the pieces in place, but I prefer pins. This time, I even took a photo of the zipp...

When did I sew these quirky quarter log cabin blocks? I don’t remember exactly, but my guess is that it must have been in the early 2000s. A few years ago, I found six of these blocks in a forgotten storage box. I added some strips to the edges and sewed two and two together – and promptly forgot all about them. This year, the time had come for these quilt blocks to become something. I added a strip to make the surface into a suitable size for a zipper bag, then quilted it and – ta-dah! – the first zipper bag panel was ready! I had to pair this panel with a different surface, which features surprisingly many solids or nearly solids! Such fabrics are a small minority in my stash. Here, the quilted, untrimmed zipper bag panels are waiting for the next phase in the bag-making process: A lot happened between the previous photo and this next one: Trimming Cutting the lining pieces Choosing the zipper and attaching it Side tabs cutting, sewing and attaching...

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 noti...

Happy Saturday, and welcome to meet the latest make from my sewing studio! This is a modern quilting blog focused on patchwork, scrappy quilts, zipper pouches, quilted bags, colour theory, and practical quilting tutorials. Today’s entry in the quilt studio diary introduces a finished project: a quilted zipper bag called Tribal. Dear Daughter suggested the name because she saw in something tribal-like in the pattern in the narrow strip just below the half-square triangles on this side: I can also share two process pictures. First, the surfaces just after I’d put them together. You can see that they aren’t even properly pressed yet: All of the half-square triangles in the surfaces must be leftovers from making the Busy quilt, for which I’ve also released a pattern. A week after taking that photo, I had quilted the surfaces and trimmed them to size. I chose intersecting curves for quilting pattern. I got the pattern idea originally from my IG friend Alfhild @alborve and it is ...

Happy Thursday, and it’s time to have a look at my sewing studio! This is a modern quilting blog focused on patchwork, scrappy quilts, zipper pouches, quilted bags, colour theory, and practical quilting tutorials. Today, I’ll share a recently finished project: a quilted zipper bag called May Day. This zipper bag got that name because I finished it in time to enjoy the May Day celebrations which are a big thing in Finland. I love the spring! Since I started blogging, I’ve grown to love the months that offer a lot of daylight even more than I used to because my makes look so much nicer in well-lit photos. Before looking at the other side of the May Day zipper bag, let’s go back in time to the moment when I’d built a small, rectangular surface and realised that I could make it more interesting. I found a large half-square triangle, sewn goodness knows when, and cut it mercilessly in half. The pieces looked good for making new corners for my original surface: In the photo, you ma...

Hello hello! Welcome to have a peek in my sewing studio! Lately, I’ve been busy sewing patchwork surfaces into quilted zipper bags, and this post introduces the first of those finishes. I’ve called it Legato, which is a music term meaning “tied together” – that the notes are to be played or sung smoothly without a silence between one note and another. I used to play the piano in my childhood and youth, so the notation and the term became familiar to me. Legato felt like the right name choice because of the way the petals of the coneflower blend into the neighbouring reds in this surface. The other side of the Legato quilted zipper bag is constructed in a similar way – around a focal fabric piece – but the orientation is horizontal: Both surfaces are a rarity for me because I built them using the quilt-as-you-go method. The surface ends up looking as if it has not been quilted though it has, and I’m not sure how I feel about the look. In some earlier projects, I have added qu...