Vintage Wool Bird Pouches

I've been kind of obsessed with zipper pouches lately. And vintage fabrics.

I had a stack of vintage wool squares that I purchased at an antique show. Perhaps someone was planning to make a quilt from them but never got around to it. I washed and dried them all to felt them and then they sat for while. I didn't know what to do next. I had LOTS of ideas of course, but was never quite convinced that I had the BEST idea for them.

Meanwhile I had been seeing little bird pouches everywhere. Mostly in the Japanese Craft books - mostly from calico-type fabrics. I liked them.

One of them had a plaid wing.

And I had plaid squares in my wool stash.

Things were starting to click.... but not quite...

The squares were really too small to make anything big enough to be useful.

So I began sewing them together. The turquoise blue next to the rust reminded me of a bluebird.... and voila - clickeroo!

The first one was tricky. Especially putting in the zipper. (The pouches are lined with 1940's reproduction calicoes.... But after that they went fairly quickly and the next thing you know - I had twelve.

I delivered them to passage and a few days later received a newsletter where the birds were featured:



Four had sold in four days. Whoo hoo!