Zakka Home – Book Review

I have been blogging now for over a year. During this past year I have reviewed so many lovely, informative, interesting and fun books. My latest book, Zakka Home, is one of my absolute favorites! It is lovely to look at and thumb through but it also has some of the best and most useful projects. Many of the projects in this book would make great gifts for moms, sisters, friends and co-workers.

Zakka Home is the third book I have reviewed that has been inspired by the zakka design style. Zakka is a Japanese design style that inspires taking everyday items and making them not only unseful but also very beautiful. This book inspires all of the above. The author, Sedef Imer guides us through 19 modern projects to beautify our homes and our lives. The projects are all useful and beautiful in true zakka style!

There are pillow covers, coasters and trivets, a quilt, tote bags, wall art, kitchen towels and many more. There is even a neat door-stopper project that is super useful! It was so difficult to narrow down my choices. I really wanted to make them all! I chose the ruffled kitchen towels, the scallop trivets, and the “take me home” quilt. In the very near future, I will be making the sashiko coasters, the sweet pouches, and the star table topper. Which ones will you make?

Ruffled Kitchen Towel

I knew that the first thing I was going to make from this book was the ruffled kitchen towel. In one of the previous zakka-style books I reviewed, I had made a couple of round trivets in beautiful blue prints and blue linen. I still had some of each of the fabrics left so I decided I would make matching kitchen towels. I am the type of person that likes to use the things I make or that are gifted to me but I am having a hard time using these because they are so pretty and I’m afraid I’ll get them dirty! These towels have adorable ruffles and coordinating blue prints on a beautiful blue essex linen. The backing is one of the quilting cottons that I used for the strips. I omitted the button because I didn’t have any that I felt looked cute and I think the towel itself is so beautiful that it was not necessary.

Scallop Trivet

The scallop trivet is a great little scrap buster! I made 4 of them as Mother’s Day gifts for my sisters as well as one for myself! I used scraps of fabric from previous projects I have made for them and I think they turned out great! The project called for a couple of new-to-me techniques such as hand quilting and an interface applique method. Both are techniques that I am sure I can incorporate into other projects as well!

Take Me Home Quilt

And for my last project – the “take me home” quilt! I love this quilt so much! When I first leafed through this book I knew I was going to make that quilt. It is so simple yet really showcases the fabrics used. My blocks are a little bigger and I made fewer blocks and omitted the border. I also used the scraps from the fabrics used to make a scrappy binding which adds to the colorful design. I used one of the main fabrics for the backing and quilted it using the “stitch in the ditch” method. My quilt ended up measuring around 46” x 46”.

I had some additional strips of fabric left and sewed them together to make a quilted panel. I will either use this as a pillow cover or as a front panel for a matching tote!

Thank you for taking the time to read my posts. I hope you will consider subscribing so you won’t miss any future posts. And as always, my hope is that I have inspired you to…

“Make Something Beautiful Today”!

You can purchase this book and most others that I have reviewed (or plan to) here.

If you liked this review, you might be interested in this one too…

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