If someone asks me if I sew, I can’t really answer “yes”. But I do, on occasion, do a random sewing project. The latest project to have taken over my kitchen is a bunch of travel crayon pouches. When I happened upon one at a local boutique, I immediately knew I couldn’t make it another week without trying it out myself. If I were not there to buy two birthday gifts, I probably would have just bought that one. But there was only pink, and not a good “boy” one. The rest is history. Less than a week later, I have two of my own hand-crafted crayon pouches, with several more cut and/or halfway sewn together.
Of course this project had the same small-town-inflicted lack of materials as all of my other projects, but I made up for it with a side-trip to Tuesday Morning on our way to Duncan for a bed and breakfast getaway this week. While there to get bed sheets, I found some cheap scrapbooking trims and ribbons that had a yard of the PERFECT green color of ric-rac to match the French toille leftover from Hunter’s baby bedding. That’s the fabric I made her pouch from, and Will’s I made from scraps left over from his toddler diaper bag I made several years ago. I knew I was saving these scraps for something good! And I have a ton more left.
Bill helped me engineer the pattern, since he’s the real project brain of the two of us, and he helped me figure out how to fix my screw-up halfway through, just like every other project I undertake. I’m tellin’ ya, if it weren’t for Bill, our house would be slap full of screwed up projects. I just have the knack for them. On the first one, I probably did as much seam-ripping as I did sewing, but it turned out so cute I don’t care. It was well-worth the effort. I used a little crayon apron my mom made for me when I was little to gauge the size of the crayon pockets. I made them a good bit smaller than she did, because I don’t want the crayons to fall out if you dump it upside down. (An apron has the benefit of gravity when it’s in use.) I gave it a good shake-test to make sure that when we’re on the plane in July I won’t be chasing crayons down the aisle.
The little travel pouches turned out so well, I’m thinking of making a bunch of them and putting them with coloring books for cute children’s birthday gifts. It will solve the problem of never knowing what to get. I’ve also got my eye on some oriental floral fabric for a knitting needle carrier, and I’m thinking up more possibilities for fabric-covered organizational tools. I really enjoy sewing, as long as I don’t have to navigate some crazy pattern. I’d rather create my own and mess it up a few times than have to spread out fifty billion pieces of marked up tissue paper, trying to figure out which part goes up. Bill thinks I should make some of these little things and sell them. I don’t know if I’ll find the time for that, but a year’s worth of hand-crafted birthday gifts already made would really suit my fancy.
