The days are long, but the years are short

This is my current favorite quote on motherhood from this book.  Sometimes dealing with the everyday monotony of taking care of little children gets tedious.  But it goes by in a flash, and I’m trying to remember every day to savor every moment.

So...I already felt behind on my summer sewing, and now I’m seeing Christmas fabric on sale.  Christmas fabric?!  I guess it makes sense.  You do have to start early if, say, you have a big Christmas quilt to make or something.  I did briefly consider buying some of that Christmas fabric to make stockings. 

I had wanted to try to sew some stockings last year, but ended up ordering them from Pottery Barn instead.  They turned out to be way too big.  I mean, I hung them on the fireplace mantel, and they almost touched the bottom of the fireplace.  They were personalized, so I couldn’t return them.  In any case, I might try to make some again this year.  But July is still too early to think about this. 

And that’s probably why I didn’t quite get around to making those stockings last year.  heh. 

Anyway, summer is just going by too quickly.  The days are longer, the kids end up staying up later, we’re running around outside a lot more.  And (same old story) I squeeze in sewing time here and there, but never get as much time in as I’d like.  But that’s ok.  The little people are time consuming, but they are also very entertaining.

 
So, what have I been up to sewing-wise?  I’ve cut out a couple of dresses, and they are waiting to be sewn up (hopefully will be done while she can still fit in them).  My latest completed project is this toy bag: 

My son, and now the baby girl, love playing with these Mega Bloks, but the bag was coming apart.

I’ve had this tutorial bookmarked for a while, and after staring at the sad looking plastic bag for long enough, I got motivated to try sewing a new one.  I really liked this tutorial, and the bag sews up pretty fast.  Since there are two layers of fabric to deal with (the outside fabric and the lining), I liked that the tutorial told you exactly which fabric to put where.  Sometimes it can get confusing.

There was one problem, though.  I had a feeling the bag would be too small, but I made it up with the measurements in the tutorial, to see how it would come together.  It turned out really cute, but only holds about half the blocks. 

And if you know me, you know I like getting it right.  :)  I had enough fabric to make a second one that was a little bigger (this did require some math), and it was just the right size this time.  Here are the two together for comparison: 

* I really like this fabric right now.  I actually bought it a long time ago, before I started sewing.  I had asked my mother-in-law to make some pillow cases for the little guy’s reading corner.  I kept the leftover fabric, and look how it’s come in so handy.
* For the plastic window on the first one, I cut some plastic from the old toy bag.  Reduce, reuse, recycle, right?  There wasn’t enough clear plastic to use for bag #2, so I got some plastic from Joann Fabric.  It was super cheap.  I got ½ yard for $2, I think.  I still have a lot of plastic left, though.  Anyone need a toy bag with a peek-a-boo window?