Joining in 'Bag It' Week 1

Decided I needed a bit of zippy therapy so I am joining in with the Bag It fun at Elm Tree Quilts. See the button on the side bar.

I am not very good at following instructions so I did fudge this one a bit except for the size.

I am trying to use up some scraps.

Happy Quilting and Crafting,

Val

Let's Book It - Feb

What a great challenge this one is. Let's Book It over at Vroomans Quilts.
Dust off those books and patterns and magazines and make those things that caught your eye. Luckily I brought my quilting books with me to the rental house. All my magazines are in storage until the new house is built. There are so many things in those magazines that I want to make.

I bought the Zakka Style book with the intention of making all the projects but what I really liked was the zip open wallet. However, I needed to choose something that wouldn't strain the brain too much so my second favourite project is the house zippy.

I loved that I could actually lay my hand on some coordinating fabrics and some lace and some cute buttons. Don't you love it when it all comes together nicely.

I have used this purse quite a lot just to pop down to the post office. It neatly holds my phone, purse and keys. I put two little pockets inside to stop the keys rubbing on the phone. They each have their own pocket and the wallet purse fits in the middle.

The cute cat button is a souvenir of my travels in the UK. I know it is not unique to the area but it reminds me of the lovely gallery just outside the tile factory in Ironbridge.

So, I am linking up with Let's Book It with Sharon today. She has the cutest little quilt block charms as a prize for joining in.

Update: I have just found Anything Goes Monday in a rather circuitous bit of web surfing. So I am linking up to that too. Maybe I can make it a bit closer to my Monday posts in future.

Please leave a comment on my flickr photo or pinterest pin if you don't go in for google+. I would love to hear from you.
Feel free to pin any of my pictures (hover over) and don't forget to like my posts in bloglovin and +1 my posts in google+. It is so nice to get comments from lots of new people and when we share each others posts and pictures lots more people get to see them outside our usual circles. I think that is really cool.

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val

Zippy Pouches

I am all excited about having a stall at the local Easter Fair market. I have my fused glass jewellery that I want to sell but I couldn't help trying to find something to sew. I tried the tote bag but I think that is not viable so I tried some little keepsake pouches that would be suitable to put my jewellery pieces in. I have finished two and have six more ready to sew up the sides and four more ready to put the zips in.

Production line

While making the 9 patches I cut off the selvedges and I love a good selvedge zippy. In the past I have had trouble sewing the selvedges together in parallel lines so I had to come up with a new method for me.
I had them all laid out and thought it would be a good idea to lay them out on a piece of iron on interfacing to hold them in place. I used my trusty teflon sheet to stop the little overhangs of gluey bits from sticking to the iron and I stuck them all on the interfacing. It was so simple to sew them neatly and in lovely straight lines.

I made two little zippies out of my selvedge fabric.

I cut the lining to match.

Sewed the zip between the outer and the lining then gave it a press.

Next I folded the outer up in front and the lining up in back and sewed them to the zipper.

Undo the zip and turn it all right side out to press around the zipper.

Do the zipper up about an inch then turn it all inside out again. Line up the outers and the linings separately and sew across the zipper on each side. I left an opening in the lining on one side or turning.

Give it a press and a bit of ribbon and voila!

I love zippies and there are lots of great tutorials out there. Here are just a few.

A simple clutch - like mine but a bit bigger.
A variation on the clutch - smaller and with cute curved corners.
A really easy way to do the zipper and lining.
Yet another way to get a really neat zipper.
A pencil case in the same style as my keepsake pouches.
A gorgeous little pleated clutch.
A nice border next to the zipper.
The wide mouth pouch.

You can gets lots of inspiration from my Pinterest board Zippy Things. Why not follow me. I am always pinning zippies.

I finished my latest dish cloth.

And I even found time to break the vacuum cleaner. It is now packed up ready to go off for repair. I think it needs a new motor. Dyson pay for the postage and it isn't even in warranty. They said maybe a few hundred dollars. Sounds better than $700 for a new one.

Make sure you check out those zippy pouch tutorials and anyone sewing along with Welcome to the North Pole don't forget Wednesday 26th Feb is the post day. I will be posting my progress and setting up a thumbnail linky for everyone to share what they have done.

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Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val

Opening Glass Applique

For the past 3 months I have been having a lot of fun making little fused glass beauties. When My husband said he wanted to buy a kiln my first thought was "Yay! I can make my own buttons... or glass quilt blocks....or zipper pulls! What fun!"
I have done a lot of surfing the web and visiting craft shows but I have not seen quilt themed fused glass items. After playing around for a while I realised why. It is very fiddly but it is also satisfying. Since my first thought is to make something to go with my sewing I don't mind fiddly. I like to try to copy the different quilt block designs or just try to make something cute and pretty.

This one is flying birds.

My husband was keen to try his skills at making detailed animal pendants. He has the skills with the tools but just needed the right outlet to use them. His interest was in the sparkly dichroic glass to highlight the silhouettes. Of course I saw pretty sparkly buttons.

I made this shirt from my Short and Stout range.

Just with fabrics I never seem to have enough glass colours and a big trick with the glass is that what you see is not what you get when you fire it. Also if I don't like something I have to make a new one and glue bits one day, then fire it the next day, then look at it the next day. It takes three days to try something. It is like crafting in slow motion.

Since I liked many of the pieces I made and I hadn't seen much like them around I thought maybe others would be interested, so I have joined my husband in the shop. I make quilt block pendants, buttons, zipper pulls and brooches all with a bit of a patchwork and applique theme.

I bought some very pretty fabrics to make some small projects from Fort Worth Fabric Studio.

I thought it would be easy to make some things to showcase my buttons and zipper pulls.

Not so! I can make a great pouch. This one is from Sew4Home with a few changes. The fabric is the feature not my zipper pull. It seems I need a whole new way of thinking to use the pieces I make.

I then made a little frame purse. The first one I made had little owls on the outside. Once again I had made the fabric the feature. Back to the sewing table. I tried the brown and orange piece with the new arrangement. You would think it would look OK but it still got lost in the fabric. I then tried the little cream letter and I think it looks great.

I didn't fully close the jump ring because I am putting this one in the shop.

Finally I am asking that you go and have a look at all the things we have made over at Glass Applique and maybe pin a picture or two from here or from the shop.

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val