Kindergartener Tote Bag 2010

Last year I made Brady's kindergarten teacher a giant tote bag. 

(Some of you might remember this- at the time my children were suffering from the common childhood ailment "Koolaid Moustache". We are having another fairly serious bout of it this year.) 

The bag was so big and sturdy that you could put a kindergartner in it so I named it the Kindergartner Bag. All of my teacher friends/family loved it and wanted one, so I decided it would be my go-to gift for all teachers- even non-kindergarten teachers. 

(You never know when you'll have to carry around a little kid in a giant tote bag.)

Here is this year's "kindergartner bag":

The teacher has this butterfly print in her classroom as a curtain and a pillow so I know she likes it.

Her favorite color is yellow. The lining on this is a vintage sheet.

Added yellow rick rack too- fun! And it helps stabilize the interfacing where I had to piece it. These bags are so big that I have to piece the interfacing before I can use it.

This bag has 3 pen pockets and a cell phone sized pocket on top of a book/folder pocket. There is also a book/folder pocket on the other side. Brady chose a "Where's Waldo?" book at the used book store to put inside the pocket.

 Stats: 

28" wide on top
20" tall
20" wide on bottom
8" deep

I feel like I am a bag lady instead of a quilter lately. I have gone through two BOLTS of interfacing since Thanksgiving. I'm gonna have to see about getting that stuff wholesale!

Finish for Friday- vintage sheet quilt

I have a Finish for Friday again! I am shooting for one every Friday this month. You can join in, too. Just hop on over to Lit and Laundry to see what others have finished, and maybe even post something of your own!

My finish is the quilting on this vintage sheet quilt- I had the top done already but was procrastinating (of course) with the quilting. This quilt is for Paul's cousin's little girl, Sydney. I made one for her new baby brother and realized I had not made one for her when she was born. Her parents just bought a new-old house and coincidentally her bedroom is going to be orange and pink!

I did the closely spaced wavy line quilting again, which is my favorite quilting technique right now. I think it goes especially well with the vintage sheets because it reminds me of how old bedspreads were quilted.

The back is a cute, BRIGHT vintage sheet as well. Everything in this quilt is from an upcycled sheet, except for the flower head itself, which is from a kit that was supposed to be used to make placemats. Some of the sheets are not extremely old, but they are all used/recycled. They. Are. So. Soft. This is the first quilt that I have made entirely from vintage sheets and I have to make one for myself!!! As I was quilting it, I just kept running my hands over the finished part. It feels so GOOD!!!

This is Sydney's baby brother's quilt. I showed a picture of this before, but the quiting was not finished at that point.

I did a version of the same quilting, but switched directions in each square. I won't do that again!!!! I couldn't lock my stitch because the machine kept switching directions when I did that so I had to pull all the tails to the back and knot them.

There are over a thousand little knots on the back of this quilt. Which means I pulled half that many tails through to the back. Not fun.

It looks really nice, but was not worth the effort. I think the straight line all the way down the quilt looks almost as good for about a quarter of the effort.

So maybe by next Friday I will have them bound and ready to go to their new little owners!