Tuesday was Ellery’s last day of school (school goes much later here in London than it does in the US). Saying goodbye to her teachers was one of our first goodbyes before we move back to NY in a little over a week. Despite talking about it constantly, I don’t think she quite *gets* just yet that she’s not going to see her school, her teachers, our house, the lovely parks in our neighborhood, our friends, etc. again once we get on that plane. Of course we’ll come back for visits, but I don’t think the enormity of this change has occurred to her yet.
I dropped the ball on getting presents for her two wonderful teachers, so yesterday afternoon after I dropped Ellery at school, I headed home to knock out a couple of these DIY makeup bags. They came together quite quickly, despite the fact that I haven’t used my zipper foot since I took after-work sewing classes at F.I.T. back in 2007. But it came right back to me once I attached the foot. They’re made using 9.5″ x 5.5″ rectangles so it was a good way to use up some bits and pieces I had lying around. The tutorial suggests using upholstery-weight fabric for the outer fabric, but I wanted to use these pin-dots so I instead just added some fusible interfacing for a bit of bulk. I was rushing through the project in order to finish it in time for school pick-up, so I managed to break two needles in the process (my machine apparently does not like to sew across zippers).
I thought the bags came out quite cute, although next time I’ll try to finish the insides a bit more cleanly. The tutorial leaves a lot of unfinished edges inside so I covered the big one with some yellow bias tape before sewing up the sides, but I’d still like to find a way to have no raw edges at all.
Then I stuck a £15 Starbucks gift card inside each and I was done! I suppose I have many many years of teachers’ presents ahead of me so hopefully I can get inspired and give them something handmade every year.
abbyroad 