My Precious Tim Holtz Fabric

While I was stash diving for the lining fabric for my red Wool and Wax Tote last week, I was seduced by my Tim Holtz fabric into making a quilt. (Blame it all on the fabric.) I have four fat eighth bundles of the Correspondence line, which is exactly the amount I need to make a Fat Eighth Flapjack quilt.

Fat Eighth Flapjack is a free pattern from Fat Quarter Shop. The thing about Tim Holtz fabric is that many of the prints feature large-scale motifs, so cutting the fabric into tiny pieces defeats the purpose. When I use my Tim Holtz fabric, I try to find patterns that are mostly based on large-ish rectangles.

I paired these fabrics with some gray Kona from the stash for the 3" background squares. I cut the gray Kona on the Accuquilt cutter. The rest of the units have to be cut by hand, but it doesn’t take long.

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I am not sure what it is about zippers. I don’t think that zippers are particularly difficult—or at least I didn’t used to think so—but they seem to thwart me at every turn.

I bought some packages of byAnnie zipper tape-by-the yard for the Place for Everything Tote. I had some time yesterday morning before a Zoom meeting, so I thought I would attach the zipper pulls to the tape per the instructions. The zipper tape is a continuous length of several yards. The instructions have you mark the tape for to the appropriate lengths, after which you are supposed to attach the needed pulls, slide them to each marked section, sew stops between the sections, and cut the tape. The zipper for the outside of the case requires two pulls going in opposite directions. The remaining zippers require one pull.

I’ve put zipper pulls on zipper tape before. There is nothing mysterious or magical about it. I attempted to attach the pulls. They would not move down the tape. I tried the fork method. I watched the byAnnie videos to see if I was missing some crucial piece of information. No luck. Nothing. I struggled with those zipper pulls for almost an hour until I had to go to my meeting.

After the meeting, I tried again. I tried from each end of the tape. I could get the pull onto the tape, but it wouldn’t slide. Finally, I tried this method from Sallie Tomato, which involves cutting one side of the zipper tape shorter than the other to attach the pulls. That worked, although it still took some effort.

I spent way too much time on that part of the project yesterday. 😡

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I changed my podcasting schedule. I don’t like it. Producing it on this new schedule doesn’t flow well or fit into my life the way it used to. I may go back to the old schedule soon.

Barring any more zipper dysfunction, I’m hoping to knock out a few projects this week.