Making pencil cases

Firstly, thank you so, so much for the warmth of your comments and emails in response to my last post - they were so much appreciated.

A new term, new pencil case post seems a little late for the 14th September, but I enjoyed making them so much that I want to share them anyway (I also love the idea that in years to come Zebra-girl might scroll through these pages and see a forgotten pencil case that accompanied her through a year of school life and be reminded of something of the 'feel' of that particular year). The fabrics and colours are all her own choices. Since last June we'd talked of a new pencil case that would be blue and yellow...but when she spotted the cake fabric in my fabric drawers the fact that it was pink became irrelevant. So as well as using the cake fabric as it was, she picked out her two favourite cakes and I appliqued them on beneath the place where I had embroidered her name in red thread.

She then chose some red polka dot fabric for me to make a ruffle with and a turquoise zip to stop the colours from becoming too saccharine. As usual, I learn a lot about colour from her - my first through was to put a red or pink zip on...but the turquoise she suggested brings the colours to life far better.

Inside is some of Rosalie Quinlan's lovely Grandmother's Flower Garden.

Last week Dinosaur-boy came home and said that many of the other children in his class have pencil cases (the school don't request that they take them in until next year, which is why I didn't automatically make one for him too). He said that he was happy to take in the one that I'd made him last year to use at home....but I love that 'new-term-fresh-stationery' feel so much myself that I wanted him to have something devoid of old pencil sharpenings.

Yesterday I shopped for new rulers and pencils for him in the morning and made the pencil case in the afternoon - yes, that's a self-indulgence to spend the whole day on a pencil case for one child...but I'm missing him during the day.

Paperchase have in stock lots of sharky writing paraphernalia that inspired the applique I made from plain grey cotton.

Inside is one of my favourite fabrics: it's sputnikky. I've added a velvet zip pull in dark charcoal for him too...good for stroking in the midst of a wobbly-bottom-lip maths moment. His name is also machine embroidered on the light grey section. My machine doesn't actually create the letters for me (as it's rather basic), but it's easy to write on fabric using a closed zigzag stitch in exactly the same way that you might go about applique - just write on the fabric with disappearing ink first - you can see a small sample of it in the second picture down at the top of this post.

Wishing you a happy Tuesday,
Florence x