When I flicked through my flickr stream recently I realised that there are a few projects I’ve made that I’ve somehow missed blogging.  It’s time to remedy that!  I’m starting with the zip-away shopping bag that I recently test-sewed for Nikki.

Look, it’s a little zippered pouch. But undo the zip and you have…

A nice big shopping bag with a firm base! Hooray! This pattern is a downloadable pdf that you can print at home. As always with Nikki’s patterns, the instructions are plentiful and have accompanying photographs to really explain things so that anyone can do it. The first time that I made this bag the process of attaching the zip was very new to me, but Nikki has some great techniques for how to do this effectively and I can see that it would be simple to really churn these out once you’ve made the first one. A great pattern – especially for gifts.  And like all of Nikki’s patterns, the instructions really do lead to a professional finish.

I used quilting cottons for this bag – both are Japanese fabrics that I picked up on sale from Darn Cheap Fabrics one day.