Here in France it has been difficult to find quilting fabrics, but even harder to find quilting friends. When I saw a woman my age at my church sitting in her seat working on an EPP project, I almost leapt out of my chair to bombard her with questions and regale her with stories of my own love of quilting. Also amazingly enough, she’s an English teacher here so her English is impeccable- probably better than mine 😉 So, after our initial introduction, we’ve been bonded by quilting ever since! Truly she’s been a huge factor in my comfort here in France and I’m so grateful for her.

When I heard her birthday was coming up, I knew I needed to make something special with my “American” fabric (fabric available in the USA, but not here in France) and my little Ruby Star Smol bundle was just the thing. It’s a worthy use of hoarded RS fabrics. Plus, a handmade gift is something I know she will appreciate!

The knew she’d get good use out of a project bag (considering I already witnessed her bringing EPP with her outside the home) and the pattern I settled on was the Rosie Sewing Case by Rosie Taylor Crafts, found on Etsy, and seen all over my Instagram feed 🙂 The pattern is INCREDIBLE. SO many options, and so many details- I love the little bindings on the zippers and I really appreciated the construction of the slip pockets. I made one page change, as I wanted to add a little pencil/pen pocket and have a specific orientation of vinyl pocket, but the pattern really is sufficient on its own.

I also pilfered a magnet from my refrigerator to use as a needle minder on the page.

Funny story- I was all finished and was showing my kids all the ways you could use this sewing case and I realized I never sewed down one of the bindings on this first page (above, you’ll see the ruler poking out of where it shouldn’t be able to go!), making the zipper totally useless! I had to hand-stitch it closed while taking the metro to my friend’s birthday party. I’ve seen enough hand-stitching being done that I didn’t feel totally weird, but it was odd to have observers while I worked! Never before had the pressure been so great, ha ha! I had also ordered magnetic closures for the tabs on the case but they were delivered 2 days late, and 30 minutes before I had to leave. That was frustrating, and I ended up using velcro- not a quiet church-use closure 😉

The pattern has instructions for a patchwork cover, but since I had limited days to make the sewing case I went with a solid cover. It was still lovely!

If I’d had more time (and money) I think this case, as a gift, would be even more perfect if some of the pockets were filled with a handful of useful sewing notions as well: rotary cutter, small rulers, mini cutting mat, wonder clips, basting glue and EPP papers, thread, embroidery scissors, needles and thimbles. What a treasure that would be!

This project took me a good 18 hours to make (which admittedly is a huge investment for a gift), but I did make a lot of mistakes that took time to re-do or unpick. I also cheated and didn’t hand-stitch down the bindings 😉 I spent some time working out the adjustments for my “custom” page too. I think an experienced maker could whip this out in less time that I took, even with the custom piecing options in the pattern. The quilting took the longest part, so with some pre-planning I could make this again and send everything to a long-armer and have some really cool small-scale edge-to-edge quilting done!

I got a text the next day from my friend with a photo the sewing case full of her own projects! It was so great to see. I hope that long after I leave here, she will pull it out and remember the fun time we have had together!

ROSIE SEWING CASE – ROSIE TAYLOR CRAFTS