school bags: Rainy Day

At Back to School night Lucy’s teacher asked for volunteers for various projects throughout the year–one of them being sewing-related. I tried to stay silent. I’ve overextended myself before and wound up sewing dolls and doll-clothes for one month straight for a church project. It was draining (and not very fun). But I figured that talents are given to us to be shared and magnified. Right? So I signed my name on the sheet.

And now me and another mom are sewing themed bags for the kids to check-out and take home.
They’re actually pretty cute. Her teacher has about 25 different themes with books, objects, and learning tools to go inside the bags. Our job is to decorate each one with the theme. The creativity is up to us.
We’re using these cheap muslin bags as our base (leftover from another church project and purchased at Oriental Trading Company).
I sewed a strip of velcro across the top to keep the supplies safe and secure.
And I replaced the handles, by accident. While ironing the bag I looked down and couldn’t see the white strap anymore. What tha? I looked at my iron and found the melted mess. Duh. So I grabbed piping rope from my trim stash and made new handles.
Then I started decorating.
I used 2 different felts, knit scraps, and a few cottons to create textured clouds in varying shapes. Then I cut rain drops from seafoam spandex–it’s so smooth and soft. I can just imagine Lucy’s tiny fingers touching each drop.
I wrote the theme words right on top of the fabric with a Sharpie. I figured that cutting letters out from felt…or freezer paper stenciling would take forever (since I have 13 more bags to do). The marker worked fine but then I saw these Stained by Sharpie fabric markers on How About Orange. And now I gotta get me some! (since the standard ones tend to bleed at times)
One bag down!
Many more to go.

And speaking of clouds, we saw these in our backyard the other evening:
The odd thing is that the sun was setting on the other side of the sky and reflecting back to the East. Hard to explain but it was very odd looking. I kept thinking it was morning time.

It was absolutely beautiful.