Dumpling Dish

I have wanted to make another Dumpling Dish for a while. The original pattern is the last 45 (!) pages of the Bionic Gear Bag (BGB) pattern. The BGB pattern is for sale on Craftsy as well as the Sew Like a Rock Star website. The entire pattern is 82 pages long.

There are lots of photos of the various steps involved in making the two projects. However, the designer includes a rambling monologue and 'stream of consciousness' text which makes it tricky trying to isolate the important parts - the steps in sewing. It would be terrific if she just wrote the pattern like a normal sewing pattern and included a video instead of the rambling, annoying text.

That being said, I did have success putting this project together.

First, I printed the last page of the pattern which is the pattern piece. I then blew it up by 50% as I wanted it to be a larger dish than the first one I did.

Then it took me a while to find the fabrics I wanted to use - same colourways - contrasting design.

 The shape is that of a dumpling.

When unzipped, it forms a bowl shape.

I use my smaller one for my sewing clips.

To make it open completely, the zipper extends beyond the edge of the 'dish'. It is trimmed and a patch of fabric is sewn to the outside anchoring the end of the zipper.

The other side opens completely. I'm pretty proud of the job I did to get the two sides to line up.  The top-stitching is done at the end and gives it a nice, finished look.

The fabric can be 'fussy cut' to best show off the fabric pattern. As the pattern piece is placed on the fold, I made sure the kitty cat was on the fold as well so it would be the centre, once unfolded.

This fabric has the cats going 'every which-way' so I wanted to make sure the prominent one was right-side up.

I usually like the linings to be a lighter colour so the contents can be easily seen.

The dumpling dish is an excellent pattern for zipped containers where the entire contents need to be easily seen. One of these days I'll tackle the full-sized BGB. I have made a couple of the baby BGBs which are smaller versions with one pocket.

The next dumpling dish I make will only be 25% larger than the pattern calls for.