Vinyl Zip Pouches from Vintage Patterns

These zip pouches still give me the goosebumps....

When my siblings were cleaning out my parents' house this past summer,  they found a box containing my mother's wedding dress pattern, scraps of the bridal fabric, and even the receipt....

I knew my mother's wedding dress was long gone.  I can still remember the day when she threw it out....  It had been stored in the farmhouse attic, and at some point the roof had leaked.  When my mother discovered that her dress had been ruined, she simply threw it out....  That always haunted me!  She seemed OK with it (at least from what I had observed as a child), but I always wished that she had saved it so that we could have salvaged at least something from it.

So, imagine my surprise when my sister presented me with the newly-found box of scraps.  I was thrilled!  But, it wasn't until a few months later when I opened the box to sift through it again that I discovered the receipt!!  It's the coolest document ever to me; it lists my mother's maiden name,  the address of where she was living at the time, the yardage amounts for her dress and her two bridesmaids' dresses,  how much they paid for all the fabric, and the date.  It even documents that weddings weren't such a big deal back then - my mother bought all that fabric on August 10, made her dress, and was married by the end of September of that same year.  Done.

I love that the pattern lists her name in pencil and documents her tiny size.  

:)

I think she even looks a bit like the bride in the pattern!

I knew I wanted to do something with the pattern for my sisters and sister-in-law for Christmas, but what??  I was so grateful that the idea for these zip pouches came to me one day in class when I was chatting about it with some of my students.

  The pouch made out of the receipt is backed with some of the bridal fabric scraps.

We also came across one of my dad's shirt patterns, so it made the perfect zip pouch as well.

I love the "J. J. Newberry Co." stamp!!

It took me a little bit to figure out just how to I wanted to do them, but I am tickled with the results!

Here's how I went about it:

After ironing a piece of Kona cotton (color PFD) fabric onto a sheet of freezer paper, I fed the fabric through my ink jet printer and photocopied the images onto it.

Then, I ironed some fusible vinyl onto the fabric.  Just be sure to cover it with a press cloth before fusing.

I trimmed the zippers, added zipper tabs, and turned the photocopied fabric into a zip pouch using this method.

They are easy to make as long as you have an ink jet printer that will feed the fabric through easily.

I am so, so pleased with how these turned out!!

Now I can't stop thinking about what else I can turn into vinyl zip pouches....

Too Cool T-shirt Quilt Tips and Tricks

Last month I made two t-shirt quilts in one week for customers to give as Christmas presents and was reminded of just how much I love this method of constructing t-shirt quilts!  

In fact, if someone asks me to make one with sashing or simple squares, I try to get out of it....  :)

This method is fun and doesn't feel tedious or boring.   Plus, customers and recipients are impressed with your expertise and can't figure out how you were able to pull it off - definitely the sweet spot all sewists dream of!

First of all, you'll need a copy of the book by Andrea Funk and Millie Funk.  Previous editions are perfectly fine to use too.  It can be a little hard to source, so you may need to ask your local quilt shop to order it for you.

I follow the method outlined in the book, except I do like to stabilize my shirts with a fusible interfacing.  I use the cheapest, lightest weight interfacing I can find.  Even though it's a little more time consuming, I find it makes the process so much easier in the long run.

Also, instead of having plexiglass templates made, I simply use the following rulers:

16-1/2 x 16-1/2"

12-1/2 x 12-1/2"

8-1/2" x 8-1/2"

4-1/2" x 4-1/2"

Additionally, I find a 2" ruler (not 2-1/2") used along with the 16-1/2" square ruler is helpful in case I need to cut a block 20-1/2".  When cutting, you simply add the 2" ruler to both sides of the 16-1/2" square ruler to yield 20-1/2".

Since I make so many of these quilts, I had my templates laminated.

And, I made up an Excel spreadsheet so that all I have to do is plug in the numbers for each size of block and it does the math for me!

I always do the machine quilting on my domestic machine.  

I like to do a large meandering free motion quilting stitch for my customers.  I find if I can use a fine thread, it blends nicely and the meandering stitch doesn't compete with the designs of the shirts.  But, t-shirt quilts can be a little tricky to quilt through without thread breakage.  I have always used Aurifil thread and a topstitching needle in the past, but on these two quilts I tried So Fine thread by Superior Threads in place of the Aurifil and was super pleased!  

Since So Fine is a polyester thread, it is strong enough to resist breakage.  And, because it is a 50-weight thread, it is nice and fine and blends beautifully.  I would highly recommend giving it a try!  I like to use a light gray shade if there are a lot of lighter colored shirts in the quilt, and a darker shade of gray if there are lots of darker colors.  It's always helpful to audition the thread across as many colors in the quilt as possible.  You want to go with a thread that looks good on the lightest and darkest shirts; I usually go lighter vs darker because I don't like the look of a dark thread on a light fabric.

I always, always, always hand stitch the binding on my quilts, but when it comes to customer quilts, I try to keep my time to a minimum in order to keep their cost as low as possible, so I usually machine stitch the binding down.  T-shirt quilts are probably the only quilt that I think a machine-stitched binding looks appropriate.  (Keep in mind that's just my personal opinion!)

Wanna know the secret to a perfectly-stitched machine binding?  Glue basting - it works like a charm!

Since I always hand stitch the binding down on my quilts, I cut my bindings 2-1/4".  But, if I am machine stitching the binding, I like to cut it at 2-1/2" to give me a little extra allowance to glue the binding down and have it cover the stitching line.  I simply machine stitch the binding to the front, wrap it to the back, glue baste it with Roxanne's Glue-Baste-It making sure the edge of the binding covers the machine stitching line, and heat set it with a dry iron.

Then, I topstitch from the front, and the back turns out perfect - every time!  If you are careful with your glue basting, your stitching lines will be perfection.

I often encourage customers to include a label to document the quilt.

If I'm stitching a quilt for myself or for a gift, a hand-written label is a nice touch.

But if it's for a customer, I usually type up the label, then run it through my ink jet printer and print it onto Kona cotton.  You simply need to iron some freezer paper onto a piece of fabric and trim it to an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet so that it will feed through your printer.  Then, peel off the freezer paper and heat set it with a dry iron.

That's it for my T-shirt quilt tips and tricks!