Simple Zipper Bags

Last Friday was the last day of school for my kiddos.  Now done with 2nd and 5th grades (how did they get so big?!) So to thank their teachers for all their hard work, I made a few Simple Zipper Bags.

The kids had a great school year. Gwyneth (in 2nd grade) was moved up to 3rd grade math in the early part of the school year and so I made an extra bag for her math teacher.  (I may have actually made 4 bags and kept one… )

The tutorial is from Fat Quarter Shop and you can read the instructions here OR watch their YouTube video here. It was fun and quick to whip them all up. I made the large version.

I used slightly different zippers with the tape not quite as wide as suggested.  It worked, but I would have preferred the wider tape, but I just didn’t have it on hand. Also, my zipper pull loop wasn’t as big so I couldn’t fit my fabric pull through the end loop so instead I used the loop next to the zipper slider and that worked out great!

Gwyneth came with me to my favorite local fabric/yarn shop Crafty Planet and helped pick out the back fabric. She had strong opinions of adding the apple fabric because… “teachers like apples”. (Who doesn’t?)  She also may have picked out some fabric to make a few skirts for herself this summer – you’ll see her first one soon.

I usually like to hand bind on my bindings, but with a zipper bag, I wanted to machine stitch these on so they would handle some abuse. (I may need a bit more practice… haha.  Also there may have been some last min sewing to get these done before school ended, but we’ll not go into that. 😉 )

Details:

Mini Charm packs – PB&J Basic Grey for Moda (I used 2 to make the 4 large bags)

Front accent fabric and lining: Colibri Coral Navy Honeymoon by Sarah Watts for Cotton + Steel

Binding: Bark Cloth Citron Migration by Michael Miller

Backing: Apples – Navy – Picnic by Melody Miller for Cotton + Steel

What you don’t see: Pellon Flex Foam FF77 and Pellon Shape Flex SF101

Thread: Aurifil 2021 (Natural White) – piecing and quilting