Tilkunviilaaja®

People sometimes comment on my Instagram posts saying that they recognised my work in the photo before they saw my account name. I’ll bet my latest make – the quilted Terrain/Maasto zipper bag – will not win such a comment! I sewed this zipper bag by a sort of request. I had spotted my Dear Husband’s toiletry “bag” that he had packed for a trip, which made me tell him once again that he was like the shoemaker’s children who go barefoot. I make more zipper bags than we need, and he uses this: When confronted about this (once again), he pointed out that all my makes were girly and if he were to start using one, it would have to be in camouflage fabric. I didn’t think I had any, and frankly, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go to shops in search of some. But the other day, I opened a box of fabric bundles in my stash and lo and behold, I discovered that I actually owned some quilting fabric that could be regarded camouflage-like. What’s more, I found some other fabrics that would compl...

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...

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...

Today, I present to you the fourth zipper bag finish since I decided to reach my average number of zipper pouches made per year. This one is called Zebra Crossing / Suojatie, and if you read on, you will learn why. This is the main side of the Zebra Crossing pouch: See how light-hearted it looks somehow! At the time of the photo shoot, this path was the only spot in our garden that caught any sun. Happily, the autumn leaves on the path matched the colour of the zipper bag. Going back in time a bit. These are my mindlessly sewn, scrappy blocks that I sewed as an interim project – and you can probably spot a few that eventually became part of the Zebra Crossing pouch: Somehow, I’m not completely satisfied with this set because so many of them look a little glum. I suspect that several of these – since they do not really meet my visual requirements – will be end up as a bottom part of a future zipper pouch. And that is the silver lining in my slightly disappointing results. T...

Today, I have the pleasure of introducing the 14th zipper bag finish of the year. There is a good reason why I named it Lofty John / Korkea John (continue reading and you will learn exactly why): In the picture, the Lofty John quilted zipper bag is posing in the nearby woods where I took a short walk last week, in the middle of a working day! The sun was shining and it felt almost unlawful to sit inside. This time of the year one doesn’t even have to think about getting burnt at midday. In October, you don’t need sunscreen in Finland (and you are lucky to see the sun at all). When I was making this zipper pouch, I managed to leave my comfort zone – I used free-motion machine quilting and ran a stipple quilting pattern on parts of the surface. This was because I was bothered by not having dared to test my stippling skills to complete the quilting on one of the Early Days zipper bag panels. Somehow, straight stitching seemed a better idea for the focus squarish parts and the wi...

The weather was finally sunny here, after many overcast days, and I was able to have a photoshoot of my latest make, the Mrs Jumbo quilted zipper bag: From time to time, I sew scraps together with no ambition to finish a zipper bag but knowing that I’ll eventually pick the piece up and use it. The elephant panel was one of such creations: I could see that the panel would need a scrap on the left hand side, to allow the face of the elephant to have a bit of breathing room, so I added it. And then I needed the panel for the other side. Luckily, I have a lot of resources to draw from! This is how the workspace next to my sewing machine often looks: These were the scrappy pieces that seemed most suited to become the other side of the elephant-paneled zipper bag: I took the picture so I’d remember how to organise the blocks. Did I organise them like this? No I didn’t, as you can see: The two sides of the Mrs Jumbo zipper bag do not resemble each other, though they share a simi...

Yay, it is still possible for me to reach the goal of sewing at least the average number of zipper bags this year! This recent finish, Early Days / Alkutaival is a step towards that goal: This was my starting point, more or less: The panels look underwhelming, don’t they? I found the upper piece amongst my resources (my scrap stash) and for some reason, it has only been partly quilted. I don’t remember why I made it in the first place – though I have a vague recollection that I put the piece together very quickly. But why would I start quilting it and not finish? No idea. Even though I had started the quilting with quite nice-looking stippling, I didn't want to return to my discomfort zone of free-motion quilting. That is why the rest of the quilting on that panel are straight-stitched curves. The other zipper bag panel got one of my favourite designs, intersecting arcs, though the placement of the arcs is different from my usual choice. If you want to know more about th...