Housewife 2.0

My very handy housewife has been traveling around with me for all the sewing for over a year now and I honestly love it so much. It's incredibly convenient to throw into a bag with whatever sewing project I have on my way out the door. Often I'm just using the un-picker, but man, is it so great to have the whole lot there. 

It came to my attention sometime in 2023, possibly term 4, as I lost a button on a jumpsuit I was wearing at work, that really, having a housewife is great if you know you are going to sew something. Equally as great to just have on hand if you are out and about and, like me, find yourself in a bit of a fashion emergency. 

I suppose the easy option would be just to pack my existing housewife in my work bag. It would certainly solve the problem, but as I only work part time, I felt for my colleagues who might find them selves in a similarly compromising position on a day that I was not in the office. The only solution I could see was to make a second housewife. (Actually, to be honest, I did consider purchasing a small travel sewing kit pre-made from Spotlight. But I have an abundance of almost everything that would go in it, and fabric to make one, so it seemed to be the more environmentally sustainable option to make my own.)

So I did. I went through my fabric stash for some suitable fabric to use up and found some final scrap of this cool flamingo and cactus print that I had made shorts for Sophie way back in 2020 and then a pillow case cover for one of these Christmas tree cushions. I also had a strip of that bluey-green stuff that felt a little fancy and made me worried about washing and ironing it. The bluey-green strip gave us the dimensions for this housewife as I just used exactly what I had. 

It's a little longer and thinner than my original, but has similar features. I used some very small scraps for the inside features like the Ikea fabric, (featured in this dress for Rachel, skorts for both girls and a skirt for me) and some final remnants of some beautiful animal print fabric (initially Rachel's Nature Bag but also her pencil case and library bag for school). No idea where the little floral scrap was from, but it's a lovely highlight. 

On what works out to be the "flap" part when it's all rolled up, I was inspired by some sashiko style stitching that I saw on the internet and wanted to have a go at. It's a Japanese style of hand stitching patterns into fabric. I think I've got room to grow, but it was a fun to experiment with on this project. 

I bound it all up by hand with some more self-made bias binding from a Lorraine Lea pillow case (which I've used before to bind things here). The housewife folds up in a similar way to the last one, and is all ready to live at work for a just in case emergency. I can already see it getting use patching some friendly classroom soft toys that experience a little too much love from the students (like this Happy Cat from Sophie's school). Hooray!