Sewing projects 2 and 3 complete!

Firstly: Chair Covers. 

I came to the realization that kids are going to be messy and if I want my chairs to survive (which I do), I need some way of easily washing off the mess and protecting the current covers. Actually recovering these chairs would be way too much hassle  So I looked through my drawers of material, surfed the net to get chair covering inspiration and then came up with some covers. Overall I'm really happy with how they've turned out.

Secondly: The Bag.

I've noticed that while the current nappy bag that I have is lovely and large and fits everything in all it's nifty little pockets, sometimes it's just too big for where I'm going and I need something smaller with just the essentials. Again with some surfing of the net, I discovered a pattern for a cool stylish bag that looked like it would do the job. 

It was going to be a challenge though, because the pattern was a bit tricky and fiddly, but I thought, what they heck - I've started to read instructions! Maybe I can do this. So I looked through the drawers of material (no shopping for me!) and adjusted the pattern a little bit (it calls for something called Peltex, whatever that is) and began. Because I was using leftover material, there was not quite enough of the blue stripy to do the whole front, but I did some creative alternating with the plain blue and came up with something quite cool. 

I've been inspired by the quilt mum made for Sophie, so I traced one of the elephants for the top flap. I think it makes it look super cool, and really only took me a little extra time. 

  

You can see the tricky handle bits here. You may also notice that in the photos you never see the handles themselves  That's because despite following the instructions (or perhaps because I followed the instructions) I managed to sew them on incorrectly (going over the zip, rather than staying on the same side). Sigh. When I realized  Steve advised some unpicking, but I had just spent at least 2 hours sewing those ridiculous tricky bits (not to mention hand sewing parts because my machine went a bit crazy and was unusable for some sections). There was no way I was unpicking that.

I suppose if the handles annoy me, I can cut them in half and rejoin them to the appropriate sides, but I'll see how I go first I think. Inside has a number of divider pockets which are very cool and handy. 

Feeling very productive after this weekend. I'm now pretty much all out of the stripy blue material (thanks Ikea!) which was also used for curtains in our bedroom. Steve watched me start the bag and asked if I had taken the curtains down to make my most recent projects. 

Bag pattern found here: http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/september2010/StyleStitches.pdf