Cutter Case Tutorial

  Well. Hello from the lovelycity of Hurst TX. I have been working part of the day on my Aunts chairs, I stopped for a break and well you know how that goes. We fixed lunch and I took a nap because I was awake a lot last night. My hubby brought me up here on Sat. and he left for home this morning at 4 AM. I was in charge of waking him up in time to leave. Not sure you know how that goes, but for me that means I wake up every hour or half hour until time to get up. Then after he left it just felt like the bed was too empty and I couldn't go back to sleep. I finally got up and got the long bolster that was on the other side of the room and put it where hubby had been and finally feel back to sleep. Silly I know.
  I promised my cousin I would put this on the blog months ago and then just forgot. This is not my pattern by any means. I learned this from Bernina, in a class to learn my new machine. I have made dozens of them since.

So lets start with a Fat quarter or scraps that are at least 15 inches long and 5 inches wide.
Cut two ouside pieces 5 in.X 15in. and cut two inside pieces 5in. X 15in. and two pieces of batting 5 in.X 15 in. You will need a zipper that is at least 20 inches long. two pieces of ribbon 15 in. long and a short piece about 3 or 4 inches to put into the zipper as a pull.

Layer one inside, one batting, and one outside and quilt as you would like to. I have done free motion, straigth lines a measured lenght apart and any number of other ways. This is a fun place to practice something new like I did on this one to the left. Then do the same with the other inside, outside and batting pieces.
  Once you have quilted it lay the zipper upside down on the edge you want to be the top edge of your bag and sew it down .( I leave it zipped when I do this as you can see in the photo below.)

Unzip it now and sew the other side to the zipper making sure your zipper will close correctly and the quilted pieces are even.
  Add a piece of ribbon to each side either right up next to the zipper or a measured distance away. I like to make sure the fabric under neath is caught to prevent fraying.

  Turn these two pieces right side together and sew along the long (15in) edge.


                                                                                    

See what I mean.
I use a 1/4 inch seam allowance most of the time, but on occasion it is a little larger as it may appear in this photo.








  Line up the zipper with the seam you just created. Pin if you need to and sew this together

 Before you go one to the other end we will need to make some cuts and sew some more so measure the corner 1 inch square and mark it in some way.

Cut the 1 inch corner out. Repeat for the other corner and when you have sewn the other end ( with zipper open) repeat for both of the corners on that end as well.

Make the same measurement and cut on the other side of this end of the cutter case.









                                                                                

  Make sure your zipper is open when you sew the second end closed. You can trim off any excess zipper once you have sewn the ends together.

Sorry about the fuzzy photos. They looked better on the camera. LOL





This is the tricky part , your cut corners will make an angle seam if you try to put it together flat. Sew this with the best quarter inch seam you can make.

Once you have sewn all four of these angle seams  making sure the side seam allowances go the same direction, you can turn your case inside out and zip it close to see how it looks.
This is where I thread the short ribbon into the zipper putll and tie it into a little know and it makes the zipper easier to use.

I did not make the two bag in this tutorial the measurements I have given you. I was trying out a new size and I will be giving these to my granddaughters with nail clippers and other pedicure tools.




I made two the same size, however I did different quilting on both of them.
So until I have a chance to write again, have a very quilty week.
Tennye