Zippered Pouches For a Friend

 

My dear old friend Jitka is an owner of a small zippered pouch, which I made years ago using fabrics by Anni Downs, one of my favourite designers. Some time ago, Jitka asked me to sew a new one from those fabrics, if possible. There are thousands of tiny pieces of fabrics by Anni Downs in my stash and I love working with them! There was only a little time problem, but finally I managed to finish the pouches before Christmas.

I still have some pictures from the fabric collection Love To Garden (one of the most successful collections ever). 

I decided for two colour schemes: red and light blue.

Two evenings were spent arranging background collages.

I used two of my favourite techniques – sew as you go and appliqué.

Then every piece was cut to the right size. 

The least popular part of sewing  for me is zippering and finishing, but it is extremely satisfactory to see the finished pouches. 

No.1:

 

No.2:

No.3:

 

No.4:

No.5:

No.6:

I love those mice!!!

Happy advent time and very merry stitching!

Michaela 

 

This Year´s Advent Calendar

 

It wasn´t a plan, but over the years I found that I´m tempted to sew at least one advent calendar in a year.  I look subconsciously for Christmas fabrics with small motives (for small advent pockets or bags) or for interesting fabric panels which would be suitable as a central motive of a wallhanging.  There is a large selection of Christmas fabrics on the market but I´m picky and I like only a few of them. My eye falls almost always on Anni Downs and Cori Dantini fabrics.

 

This year´s advent calendar is a little bit special, because it is not a calendar for a child. This calendar was sewn for a dear friend of mine, who loves Advent and Christmas. Last year she complained that she prepares advent calendars for her daughters but – being an adult woman - she never gets one herself. I knew immediately who the next advent calendar would be for.   

The basic material is natural linen, the central motive is Cori Dantini´s panel from the Joy& Wonder collection. I write it again and again, but I just have to: Cori Dantini´s fabrics are absolutely amazing. They are not only beautiful in themselves but also very strongly inspiring. Working with them I cannot “only use” them. I´m tempted to develop them, add details, embellish, quilt… 

The central motif is fused appliqué on linen with an added layer of linen on the edges of the picture. The whole piece was laid on the cotton batting, stitched and quilted by machine, I added also a few hand stitches.

I sewed 24 small pockets and my husband added metal eyelets. 

The pockets were arranged and sewn around the central motive,the hemming was made and finally the pieces of string were added. 

 

The piece de resistance are the Tim Holtz number tokens and tokens with quotes. It took a long time before I could finally buy them, but it was worth it, I love them!

Happy Advent time, dear Denisa!

Happy sewing!

Michaela