I’ve always been a bit of a large-scale long-term project kind of girl. I’m the one who inevitably embarks on the king-size quilt and spends two years hand-quilting it…..and has the masterpiece at the end to prove it. Earlier this year though I finally bit the bullet and learned to machine quilt, mainly because I realized that no-one is ever going to read a quilting blog where I only have an extra six inches of stitching to show a day! Even I was amazed by how much my productivity increased and I think now I would find it hard to go back to doing such big things by hand.

I’ve never really done little projects either. Never really felt drawn to them…until now that is. Those of you who stop by regularly will know that I was inspired by Nicole’s blog to have a go at some Zippy Strippy bags using a very nifty little pattern by Atkinson Designs. I even bought a Moda Bliss jelly roll especially for the purpose.

The result:

1. One jelly roll goes a very long way – as you can see from the collection above, which include Zippy Strippys and also a half made Friendship Bag, which is loosely based on a very good tutorial on Rachel’s blog. I have used a couple of Bliss fat quarters and some other odd fabrics for the linings, but the jelly roll is still going strong – and I will probably manage a couple more medium sized Zippy Strippys before I’m through.

2. Jelly rolls are indescribably perfect for projects like this. Not only are they already cut to the correct width for the project – greatly speeding up cutting out and probably improving accuracy too, but they are also co-ordinated just enough, but not too much, to make the fabric combinations interesting and just a weeny bit funky!

3. Jelly rolls give you a huge range of fabrics to mix and match without costing the earth, so they are a fairly economical choice for making presents with.

4. Little bags are the perfect way to use up all the odds and ends of batting that accumulate, taking up masses of storage space, but which are too big to every throw away. You wouldn’t believe how much storage space I’ve just freed up. (Mmmmm wonder what I could fill it with…..?)

5. I LOVE these little projects….but I guess you might have realized that by now!… I have no idea why I never did stuff like this before. It is just soooo rewarding being able to get things finished quickly and making delightful gifts for friends and family, which I think might just stand a chance of being gorgeous enough to get used!

6. I think I might be just a teeny bit addicted.

7. I may never stop making Zippy Strippy bags.

8. I might just go on for ever….

9. And ever…..

Helen

This entry was posted on Friday, December 17th, 2010 at 10:22 am and is filed under Quilting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.