Early this year, I purchased a kit to make a Halloween tote bag for Anya. I had tried piecing it together several times, but stitching a straight line at exactly 1/4″ is not my forte. My last attempt, though, used a sewing machine foot that has a guide for a seam allowance of exactly 1/4″. WooHoo! I was able to get the little blocks pieced together. I want to get some of the rainbow spider web fabric to make a Halloween skirt next year too.

Now I’m almost finished with the bag — just need to stitch the letters. I didn’t quite follow the instructions. Or maybe I just didn’t understand the instructions. It seemed to me like the exterior and the fusible fleece were quilted, but the bag interior was not. I sandwiched all three layers and did my quilting. I also used my serger to make the side seams. That seemed like a more durable solution.

Front (oops, I still need to remove the chalk lines I used to quilt the bottom portion!)

And back:

I decided to make Anya a quick (not pieced and not really quilted) blanket since it’s starting to get a little cold at night. I purchased 2.5 yards of a border print fabric (the stars continue up to the top selvage edge). It is folded in half along its length, so the front and back are more or less the same.

I used a thicker polyester batting to make a nice warm snuggly blanket. I am always surprised by how thin polyester batting is. I’d had feather and wool blankets throughout my life, and I think there is some psychological effect by having a thick, heavy blanket. But the polyester is actually warmer, so practicality won out over impression … so I looked for the thickest polyester batting I could find.

Anya has gotten infatuated with princesses and doctors — so it was a bit of a toss-up which one she’d want to make for this year’s Halloween costume. But princess costumes are shiny and sparkly, whereas doctor costumes are … well, scrubs and maybe a white lab coat if you are feeling fancy. Sure there’s a stethoscope and maybe a bag. But I really should have been able to guess which would be more appealing in the end.

We’ll be making a Belle-like costume this year. I found a yellow/gold jacquard fabric that I’ll use for the dress:

And I picked up a sparkly net fabric to use for accents.

I want to research the difference between using a lot of panels individually gathered and making a long circle skirt gathered along radial lines. The circle skirt would eliminate a LOT of seams, but I don’t know how the panels will look. Might have to take a little circle and see how it looks when it is gathered.

I am planning to use the same bodice from her Easter dress – it fit well, and I already have the pattern printed. I may make a long-sleeved version to be more seasonally appropriate.

I purchased two yards of the 44″ wide printed star fabric and one yard of the 60″ wide fuzzy green fabric. The fabric arrived, the zipper bits arrived, and then I thought “self, what dimension would make a good toddler sleeping bag?”. Wrong order of operations there.

Now the question is “what dimension sleeping bag can I make with the fabric I already purchased?”. Folding in half along the shorter side yields a 22″ wide sleeping bag. Anya’s waist measurement is 20″, and 22″ seems awfully snug even now. So I’ll use the measurement along the selvage edge as the sleeping bag length. 37″ is a little shorter than she is now, but my sleeping bags (not the camping-in-the-Artic mummy ones) have usually come up to my shoulders … so 37″ will work for years. Then the print’s is folded along its length and the fuzzy folded along its width making a 30″ wide bag. It’ll be 37″x60″ unzipped – which will make a decent “snuggling on the sofa” blanket after she outgrows it as a sleeping bag. Or so I’m telling myself 🙂

The interior is almost complete — I still need to stitch the zipper strips onto the bag, but it actually looks like a bag now:

The side pockets are assembled and ready to be attached. I really like the grommets.

The back of the backpack has been assembled too — the straps are mounted & the D-rings are in place.

We went to Joann this evening and picked up a zipper foot, so I can get the piping stitched up tonight.

Anya’s owl backpack is starting to come together. I’ve got all of the pieces cut, and the insulation bits are glued to the laminated bits. The glue needs to set for 24 hours.

The owl has been assembled – I want to embroider the face and maybe some zig-zag lines on his body and wings. The face and wings have a thin batting so I’ll get a quilting effect with embroidery. The body (pocket) does not have any batting because it is already a little thick with the laminate layers.

I’ve got the bias strips cut for the piping, and we picked up some 325 paracord to use as the “string” in the piping. Tomorrow, we’ll get the grommets installed on the mesh pocket casing. We should start assembling the bag once that is done!

I just started cutting the pieces for Anya’s Owl Backpack (a pattern we found on Moda BakeShop). I am making one tweak to the pattern — the front pocket (a.k.a. the owl’s body) is going to be lined in the laminated fabric. Leaky pens, melted crayons … hopefully this will mitigate staining.

We finished cutting the front and back pieces tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll cut out the top/side/bottom rectangles. I didn’t realize the bird fabric is 54″ wide … this may be the lining for several backpacks as Anya grows 🙂

I think the polka-dot fabric looks rather nice with the laminate. There’s a bird the same shade of blue, and there’s a bird the shade of pink I’ll be using for the piping and zipper.

The pattern itself I found a little hard to follow. I love that they save paper/ink by not printing a bunch of rectangles, but there are instructions to cut a specific size rectangle from one of the fabrics or another scattered throughout the document. I read through the entire thing three times before I found the rest of the backpack back exterior. To avoid missing any pieces, I searched through the document for the string ‘cut’ and listed out each piece. This list is categorized by fabric. Odd, since they have a “recipe” at the beginning of the article, that they don’t do something similar.

Laminate:
(2)    15 1/2 x 2 1/2    zipper opening interior
(2)    8 3/4 x 4 1/2    side of backpack interior
(1)    10 1/2 x 4 1/4    bottom of backpack interior
(2)    <backpack back pattern>    front and back
(2)    <owl belly pocket>    owl pocket lining

Insul-brite
(2)    8 x 4        side of backpack insulation
(1)    10 x 4        bottom of backpack insulation
(2)    <backpack lining pattern>    front and back

Twill:
(2)    15 1/2 x 2 1/2    zipper opening exterior
(2)    8 1/2 x 4 1/2    side of backpack exterior
(1)    10 1/2 x 4 1/2    bottom of backpack exterior
(1)    10 1/2 x 9    backpack back
(1)    <backpack back half-circle>    backpack back
(1)    <front back pattern>    front
(2)    22 x 4    straps
(2)    2 1/2 x 4    strap attachment mount

Mesh:
(2)    5 1/2 x 7 1/2    mesh pocket

Piping Fabric:
(2)    7 1/2 x 3 1/2    mesh pocket casing

Random fabrics for owl:
(1)    <owl pocket lining>    owl pocket
(2)    <owl face pieces>    owl face
(4)    <owl wing pieces>    owl wings

We got presents! While we were mowing the grass yesterday, I noticed a couple of boxes at our garage door. All of the bits and pieces for Anya’s owl backpack got here. Still haven’t unpacked the boxes, but I should be able to get started on her backpack this weekend!

Anya has been asking for a sleeping bag — primarily for camping in the woods, but I’m sure she’d use it as an indoor blanket too. I found a simple looking tutorial at http://crazylittleprojects.com/2013/09/kids-sleeping-bag-pattern-tutorial.html and think that’ll be my Christmas present project.

I’m thinking about using a black fabric with metallic gold stars for the bag exterior and a minky green for the interior. I found a zipper with gold teeth and green tape at The Zipper Lady — by the yard zippers! You can add your own bottom and top stops. Maybe case some elastic in the print fabric and use it to hold the bag when it is rolled.