Quilting on Vinyl and Leather with Katie Baker

This week I’m chatting with Katie Baker, a bag maker and chemist who enjoys quilting on unusual quilting materials like vinyl and leather. Learn how this works and how Katie planned and launched her signature black collection of bags on Etsy in this podcast episode.

Listen to the episode with Katie using this player or download it to your computer:

Behind the scenes at Leah’s house

This week I finally got my Singer 12 treadle in its permanent home in my living room. At the beginning of the podcast I was polishing up screws and hardware to put the machine back together.

Still don’t know for sure if this Singer 12 machine will ever stitch properly again. If it doesn’t, and you know an alternative machine that will fit into this treadle base, please let me know in the comments below!

I’ve also been working on a new doll, Mally from Mally the Maker. I’ve had the most fun working on her pants and figuring out how to make a working buttoned fly and real pockets.

It took a lot of work and seven prototypes to make Mally’s pants, but am so pleased with the results! I still have some more designing and playing to do with this doll pattern so be looking forward to it sometime in January 2019.

This week we also began quilting along together with the Friendship Quilt Along. Click Here to learn how to quilt the Scrappy Star block on your home machine.

Quilting Vinyl and Leather with Katie Baker

Katie was inspired to try quilting on vinyl this time last year. She began experimenting on her home machine and shared some images of the bags she made online. Everyone liked her images so much she decided to pursue making a collection of bags and selling them on Etsy.

Unlike many people selling on Etsy, Katie planned the entire collection and sewed all the bags before listing a single item. She spent most of 2018 researching and considering her options and picking her patterns before she took a single stitch.

This is great because the devil is in the details and planning is so important on a project like this.

We talked a lot about pricing handmade work too. Katie is employed as a chemist for her day job. She understands what her time is worth and has priced her bags accordingly. Click here to check out Katie’s beautiful bags collection.

In the podcast, Katie shared many places where she found materials and hardware for bag making. Check out the links and places she liked to visit below:

• Sew Sweetness – Sara Lawson’s inspiring Youtube channel.
• Lauren Mormino  – Katie mentioned in the podcast that Lauren sells hardware, and she also does excellent Youtube videos for bag making.
• Emmaline bags – Great place to find bag hardware.
• More Me Know –  More bag hardware.
• Sallie Tomato – Even MORE bag hardware!
• Renae Christine – Katie mentioned learning a lot about business and found helpful advice here.
• Starla Moore – Another great site for handmade business advice.

After we finished the interview Katie and I decided to do a little collaboration and she’s going to send me some material to play with. I can’t wait to try quilting vinyl or leather on my longarm. I believe Katie is running a special giveaway on her bags this week. Click here to check it out.

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day