How My Time Flies: Useful and Good Looking

Monday, 19 September 2016

Useful and Good Looking

Just like the kids, when September hits I'm back to school. This year I'm not in the same room all day so I needed something to help me be portable and keep me organized.

I decided on the Caravan Tote as a good sized bag. It will fit my binders and whatever marking I collect. It got great reviews online, which is always helpful. I didn't make all the pockets and zippers it called for - I didn't need them and I wanted to keep the cost down.

I used Essex linen as the dark base with Mon Ami as the floral and a dot pattern as the inside. I bought .5m of each fabric and had very little left over. The base has a quilted cross hatch in it - hard to see in this photo - of 2.5-3" squares to help hold the fusible fleece in place. Sorry I don't have a photo of the inside. I put in a small zippered pocket and a hook to hang my keys on. I've been using it every day for the last two weeks and it works great. It's the perfect size and I love how it looks.

I also made myself a marking pencil case to go in this bag. I don't do any marking at home so I need a small case that holds my essential marking supplies for when I'm marking - usually at Starbucks.
I used some of the fabric left over from the bag to create this:

It holds all my essentials - kleenex, pens, highlighters, clips, and post its.

I used this pattern (by the same designer as the Caravan tote, but free) and made the size small. It's big enough to hold pens and plenty more.

Finally, I needed an every day pencil case to hold all my other supplies. Pens, pencils, clips, elastics, everything I could possibly need. I used the Sew Together Bag pattern and put this together. The fabric is "Apple of my Eye" by The Quilted Fish - it's part of the first fat quarter set I ever bought. I've been saving it, I don't know for what, and broke it out for this project. This bag is great and holds everything I could possibly want in a day.