School Sewing

My kids head back to school next week. Do yours?

When my first child started school I thought about what I could make for my daughter to take rather than buying things. Now as she goes into Year 4, I’m seeing the benefits of taking that time to sew. The pencil cases that I made a couple of years ago are still being used. The head set that she has had to take every year but has really not used very much in class is still in great condition because it is stored in a little zippered pouch rather than just thrown in the box to get tangled with all the others. The calculator that she got last year still has its instructions because she tucked them into the zippered pouch as well.

This year she will have a new chair bag, not because the last one is worn out but because it is too dirty to come clean - pale pink was probably not the smartest colour choice for hiding dirt! Her new chair bag is made of heavy upholstery fabric from Ikea. It looks different to the ones sold in the school shop and is slightly larger too, so it is easier for her to spot in the classroom and holds more mess.

One thing I need to make new this year is her bag tag. She has had a flower shaped tag for the last few years but it too has become a little too dirty and ragged to keep using. So we’ll be creating a new one this weekend. The kids find that it is not uncommon for someone else in their class to have the same school bag so the bag tags help them to spot their bag amongst the racks.

Another thing I’m going to look at this weekend is a bag for her recorder. This is the first year that they have had to take a recorder, and I expect her to keep needing one until the end of primary school. So I think I’ll make a bright bag for it so she can both keep it safe and find it easily.

If you’d like to make a pencil case, check out our easy tutorial here: How to Sew a Simple Pencil Case

If you’d like to sew a chair bag, I have a tutorial for that over at The Crafty Mummy: Chair Bag Tutorial. There is also a Bag Tag Tutorial over there.

What have you made to send to school this year?

CraftyMummy (112 Posts)

Tonya is the voice behind TheCraftyMummy.com. She dabbles in lots of different crafts – patchwork, quilting, cross-stitch, scrapbooking, knitting, crochet and sewing. She also writes about blogging and social media.