This was written by Cherie from you & mie for the Miss Matatabi Makers series.

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Hello again! It’s me, Cherie. When browsing through the Miss Matatabi shop for this month, this bright and cheery Nesshome linen blend caught my eye. I love cheater prints that give the illusion of various fabrics pieced together. So much fun, for so little work! But I didn’t know what I wanted to make with it.

I went through a whole bunch of ideas, but I finally settled on this mini suitcase for my daughter to use as a carrying case for her brand new tea set. It was not a quick project by any means, but I love how it came out and think this fabric was PERFECT for it.

The fabric comes with tons of fun designs in springy colors and I knew that I wanted to do some quilting to play with the patchwork design. Before I started constructing the case, I layered the fabric with fusible fleece and stitched straight lines to quilt it, but at varying angles. That was one of the most fun parts of this project!

I used the Sidekick Mini Suitcase pattern by Sew Fearless, except scaled down a bit to make a mini MINI suitcase. I knew the tea set wouldn’t need a huge case, so I shrunk down the size of the top and bottom pieces to 73% while keeping the depth of the case the same as the original. It’s somewhere between the size of the kids suitcase and a lunch box. Perfect for my tiny toddler.

Like I said, this isn’t the easiest project to tackle – definitely not a one-nighter (I’d give yourself a few). But it was suuuuuper rewarding to see it come together after all that work. The construction of the suitcase is awesome – it seems sturdy and looks great. The main difficulty I had with the pattern was with the layout and font of the directions. It’s done in the style of a comic book. Which, while it’s original and cute, made it a bit tricky to sort out and decipher in some places. Fortunately, Jodi of Sew Fearless did a lengthy sew-along with thorough directions on her blog! Extremely helpful if you’re going to sew this pattern. There are a lot of materials you need to make this suitcase, like stabilizer and plastic canvas, zippers and interfacing. But all those things come together to form a solid legit suitcase. The other part that was tricky for me was sewing in the lining on the lower portion of the suitcase – I couldn’t get it to look nice when I topstitched along the outside of the suitcase, so I ended up pulling those stitches out and hand stitching it in.  Definitely more work, but it looks nicer in the end.

The case is lined with solid blue double gauze. It’s so soft and luxurious. Those teacups are so lucky to be snuggled up in some double gauze!

I had plans to make some matching napkins and a picnic blanket with the leftover fabric, but I ran out of time. It’s still on my to do list, for sure!

Yuki loves her new case and the tea set inside. And I love that it’s easy enough for her to carry and open and close on her own. Little kids love to lug stuff around with them. I can imagine that this mini suitcase will get plenty of use!

This fabric is so fun and cheery to look at, I can imagine it being used in so many ways!  A bag or toddler backpack, a quilt, or pillows and I love the project photos posted in the fabric listing as well!  I may just have to make some coasters for Yuki’s tea set too!

Thanks for letting me share my project. I can’t WAIT till you see what’s in store for the month of June!

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Thank you, Cherie! Connect with Cherie on her blog, instagram, facebook, and pinterest.