My Belated 'Back-To-School' sewing

In my haste to get the kids back to school, I forgot about sharing quite a few things with you all So if you need inspiration come NEXT year's back to school, here it is!!

1. Art Smock, size 7

2. Pencil Case

3. Kindy Cushion

4. New Pre-primary cushion cover

Art Smock

I saw Squirrel and Fink's beautiful art smock on Facebook, which reminded me that Keegan needed an art smock this year. He chose these fabric (with only the smallest amount of guidance, he really didn't actually care what it was made from). The check is a cotton drill, a little thicker than the cotton sleeves. I did think about putting clear vinyl on the front, but honestly couldn't be bothered!

I used a pattern from a Japanese Pattern Book that had raglan sleeves and a button front that I just turned back to front.  I scalloped the front pattern piece to give a 'tulip-like' closure to the now back. Because the sleeves weren't symmetrical front and back, they are a little odd, and really should have cut the 'back now front' piece with the front sleeve slopes. But for an art smock it doesn't really matter. I used a wide bias binding around the neckline then threaded it with elastic. 

A personalised pencil case for Keegan Quite some time ago, I bought some fabric from a local quilting fabric store, purely because I spied Keegan's name in it. Never did anything with it, but now I have! A tiny piece, cut right out of the middle! He came home from school yesterday and informed me that Kayla and Dylan would both like a pencil case  because their names are on the material too. It's quite a small pencil case, since that was the size specified on the booklist.

I love this fabric. I knew the boys would too, given their love affair with How To Train Your Dragon movies.  It's from an Alexander Henry line called Monkey's Bizness The Dragons. There were vikings too, which I looked lovingly at. No idea what I will do with them, but something will present itself eventually!!

Keegan asked for the red dragon to be on his pencil case and was even more pleased when he realised there was almost "three whole dragons on the front AND a black dragon on the back"! 

If you want to make your own pencil case, you can buy a kit from Hunting for Ladybugs that actually gives you a the instructions and everything you will need...the fabric, zipper, interfacing AND cotton that will be delivered to your door. No need to visit Spotlight to get a matching zip or thread.  But if you have a healthy fabric supply already, there is a tutorial on the Make It Perfect blog which I  used to make zippered pouches for our teachers last year ...which I just realised I STILL haven't blogged about either!!   On the 'dreamy topics to blog about' list.

 The Kindy Cushion

I can't take the credit for making this cushion though. If you follow along with me on Instagram (@chellby18) you may remember Keegan wanted to do a bit of sewing. He has never used the sewing machine before, but watched me plenty of times and had lots of practise putting the presser foot up and down for me. He wanted to make a cushion for Anya. (Not my idea) So he chose the fabric, cut this out (I drew lines) then pinned and sewed this ALL BY HIMSELF! I did help tell him when to start, stop, backstitch etc, but he controlled the whole lot. [Proud Mum moment!!]

He put his old kindy cushion inside it, for his little sis.
And then we realised it probably did need a button. Mum's maths weren't so great on calculating the overlap. So I did the buttonhole and sewed the button on. He'd had enough by this stage. There was no seam finishing to the inside either, so hopefully it holds up at kindy OK this year.

Pre-Primary Cushion Cover

All year last year, I promised this kid I'd make him a motorbike cushion cover for his kindy cushion. Every school holidays came and went with no cushion cover making. AND THEN we discovered Nathan's name in the fabulous name fabric too, so that prompted out little stitchup of this cushion cover. We discovered that he didn't actually need a cushion for pre-primary, so it now takes pride of place next to his pillow every night.

 Did you have a favourite back to school sew this year?

Happy Sunday,
Michelle