Wonky Patchwork: PE Bags

All my babies are back at school today and I'm feeling lost. I can't seem to settle down to anything. Unfortunately, this is despite the fact that I have a huge number of jobs I could and should be doing - our builders, for instance, have just been demolishing our old, tatty garage and sheds and have left me a lovely, big pile of wood to chop and store.

Difficult to convey the size of this pile in a photo - but it's almost as tall as me at its highest.

And of course I've got lots of sewing I could do instead, but even that isn't helping much today. I'm going to go and try and get on with something again in a minute when I finish this, but first I was going to show you a PE bag I made for Maria for school.

I made one for Venetia a couple of years ago when she started. It's looking slightly on the grubby side now, but here it is:

Just a very simple drawstring bag, made out of wool. I cut the butterfly off an old T shirt of Venetia's that was a bit small and stained, and just sewed it on with a tight zig zag stitch, and a couple of sequins for antennae.

A few weeks ago, just after we had bought all the new school uniform, Maria requested her own PE bag. She wanted a red one (her favourite colour) with a fairy on it please. I finally got round to it last week. I started with a quick, rough sketch of a fairy on a scrap of pattern paper I had.

Then cut out the pieces I'd need in some wool - adding an easy toadstool and butterfly.

All very simple pieces to applique.

I cut out some red wool the right size for the bag and tried out the fairy on there.

I think I would have preferred a lighter colour myself but Maria was adamant it had to be red. So next I just machine stitched it all on with a basic running stitch. Added a few machined lines on the wings and quite a lot of lines on the hair and the butterfly body, and lastly hand stitched the face detail and the toadstool spots.

I've left a top butterfly wing flapping - difficult to see on a photo, I'm hoping it won't get too battered and tatty, if it does I can always sew it down.

Once the applique was done it was very quick and easy to sew the bag together, and here it is finished:

I'm a bit annoyed with myself because I sewed the applique too high up really, but Maria's happy with it.

I'm incredibly lucky to have, as well as some very special non sewing friends, a lovely group of 3 other craft loving, keen sewing friends very nearby - Michele, Jen and Emma. I think it says a lot about how much we have in common that we've all, independently of each other, made our little ones PE bags this Summer! To give you a few more ideas, here are their bags which they've kindly allowed me to share on here too (thank you!)

This is Michele's bag for her beautiful boy, as well as loving the patchwork I'm very jealous of the photography. Michele's husband takes wonderful photos, I need some lessons!

Here's Emma's bag for her gorgeous girl: