I feel like if I use the word “adorable” about Zakka Style one more time, the writing police are going to come after me. But I’ve consulted my thesaurus and no other word fits quite as well. Darling, precious, charming — it’s all those things but somehow they feel sarcastic coming from my fingers. Ooh, here’s a good one: ambrosial. Let’s see how ostentatious I can make my words today.

Another winner from this great book! Works up quickly, makes a neat gift, uses scraps, all characteristics I love in a good zakka project. I did have to spend some quality time with my seam ripper on this one, but it was no fault of the pattern author, just my own inattention. I would bother to say “be sure to pay close attention to steps blahblahblah,” but it seems redundant. The instructions are accurate — just follow them and it will come out as pictured. :~)

• I’ve been saving my selvages for a long while because of all the neato mosquito projects that I keep coming across, but this is my first time using any of them. I love the result combined with this charcoal gray linen, leftover from an apparel project. The linen was fairly lightweight though, so I wish I had interfaced it. That would have helped especially with its shiftiness during assembly.

• I do have a mini iron living in one of my drawers, and really, it wouldn’t have killed me to bring it out for this. Tiny piecing projects are exactly why those things were invented, I’m sure!

• She did recommend a walking foot, but I didn’t bother. I usually don’t feel I need one if there’s no batting layer to contend with, but that certainly varies by sewing machine. I just slightly loosened up my presser foot pressure when working with the multiple layers, and it worked great.

• I used to regularly throw good time after bad trying to achieve flawless crisp corners until coming across this tutorial. In step 8 of the assembly, it worked perfectly on the corners with just the two layers, but not at all on the two bulky corners. So since I had to seam rip it open anyway (unrelated), I redid those thick corners the regular pivot-then-trim way, which worked better.

So far, each of my Zakka Style Sew Along choices has been more scrap-a-licious than the last, but that all changes with the next one I’m planning to make — the Stem Messenger Bag. C’mon, y’all know I have to do that one.