One of the things I wanted to get done before school went back, was to finish all the unfinished things that have been sitting on top of my sewing shelf. Some things were easy; like the girls dresses which I haven't blogged about yet. Others I started and then found I didn't know where to go next, like the bags I unpicked.
Something else I have had on the shelf for at least a year now, was some pillow cases that my sister had given me. Originally she had bought the material from Ikea thinking to make curtains for their downstairs area. This plan didn't happen, so I helped her sew them into large cushion covers instead. I don't know what happened to the cushions, but sometime a while ago, she gave me the fabric, thinking I could reuse it for something else.
My initial plan was to sew them into reusable bags, and donate them to the Boomerang Bag movement. Alas, COVID stopped all the meetings and I was lacking the motivation to sew them myself last year. I ended up unpicking them in preparation for sewing in December, but then they sat again on the shelf until last week.
I was at a neighbours house, and a friend asked if I could sew up a couple of chair bags for her kids for school. Since I knew I had the fabric, I said yes straight away. It was two birds with one stone. I got to use up the fabric and my friend got chair bags for her kids. Done.
Suddenly it was all too easy to sew with this fabric. I took her existing chair bag for measurements, but a chair bag is pretty straight forward. I did a bit of over thinking things, trying to make sure I sewed the seams as strong as possible, given the bags would be holding heavy books, but in the end, I didn't give myself too long to think about it.
The outcome was fantastic. Maybe this fabric was always meant to be chair bags? I do have a little left over, but that's ok living in my scraps for a while. The fabric is pretty cool, even just in black and white, but my friend let her kids (and mine) colour all over it with sharpies, so the end result was unique and colourful.
