After the frustrating mess that was my last zipper bag, I decided the best thing to do was to confront my fears head on and just repeat the pattern again, trying out some different batiks along the way. After all, I had found my zipper foot, and completely understood all the demands of the pattern right?
I was getting a little bored of making coasters but was enjoying being strict with myself and sticking to small manageable projects. Still, fabric coasters aren’t exactly the most useful things and, although I think I still have a bit to learn about getting neat bindings on, it was time to try something new. Today’s inspiration came from a tutorial over at The Sewing Chick for an incredibly cute zipper bag.
This year I happened across the opportunity for my first visit to Seoul, South Korea. For being one of the world’s biggest megacities, cities with a population over 10 million, Seoul has a lot of charm, from a little book library park in the middle of the city, to the rivers that divide it up. The food is excellent and chimaek (chicken and beer) is a genius idea and I would be very happy to see, along with the Japanese izakaya bar traditions exported all over the world. Preferably alongside fabric markets as mindboggling as Dongdaemun.
The thing I always enjoy about my craft shop excursions is they often take you to places you’d never otherwise go. I have to admit, after some internet searching turned up The Quilter’s Cupboard and I started looking on a map, I thought this trip might end up rivalling where Wonderwool, Wales in terms of the amount of adventuring required to get there. 
It’s very hard not to love California with its great weather, beautiful coastline and abundance of really excellent craft shops. I certainly found a few good places when I visited last year. So what better way to guide a road trip south of San Francisco than trying to combine as much sea and fabric as possible?
A while ago, I blogged about my visit to the wonderful Britex Fabrics in San Francisco and their store-exclusive ‘souvenir’ fabric that I was at a bit of a loss what to do with.
Next skill in the list to learn, bindings. I was somewhat encouraged by my success with my first two attempts at coasters and also wanted to try some patterns a little more reminiscent of a quilt block. The added advantage of this also being that I got to play with more colours all at the same time.
As someone who really loves lurid colours, it probably comes as no surprise that, when it comes to fabrics, I really, really love batiks. There’s enough variety of prints, patterns and colours that I could probably be entertained forever. The ‘mottled’ effect you get from the resist dyeing process also means that one piece of fabric has a huge amount of variation within it, which for me all adds to the creative fun.
With the new Bernina safely resident in my apartment, rotary cutters, mats and some fabric that let’s just say I grabbed with convenience as my primary concern, I was ready to have a go at my first simple sewing projects. The plan: to do things small enough and not so labour intensive that it wouldn’t be heart breaking if I had to throw them away.
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The last six months have been a bit of a rollercoaster ride, with two moves, a new job and all the general chaos and upheaval that comes along with that. It has been rather exhausting and the whole thing has seen me decoupled from a lot of my crafting equipment, my stash as well as all my usual routines.
astitchornine 