Book Bags

Did you know it was already mid-May? And that preschool ends before Memorial Day? Yeah, somehow that slipped my mind. I now have four teacher gifts to make in the next week, as well as a birthday gift for a little girl friend of my daughter's. We didn't get the teachers anything for Christmas or Teacher Appreciation Week, oops! Allison has loved her first year of school and I wanted to make something useful for the teachers. My mom was a teacher and I remember her coming home at the end of the year with dozens of mugs. So, mugs are out! I figure everyone can use a good tote bag, especially teachers, so that's what I'm going to do.

I love this Drawing Room print from Anna Maria Horner, and it's such a nice smooth sateen. I snapped some up when it was on clearance at fabric.com (it still is! Just this colorway for some reason, only $4.54/yard!), intending to make myself a library bag with it. I also thought if I had enough I'd do something like this pillow from Parrish Platz. To link where linking is due, she was inspired by Amy a la Mode.How totally cool is that? I'll have to start thinking which book titles I'd use.

But back to the case at hand. Bags for teachers! The pattern repeats four times across the 54" width of the fabric, and I wanted to get as much bag for my buck as possible. My first thought was to just use one column per bag so that I didn't have edges of the next column peeking in. I did french seams, trying to keep it nice and simple. But then I ended up with this sad little 9" x 12" bag. I didn't even bother putting handles on, it wasn't worth it. I guess this one can be that library bag I wanted! After I fix that crooked top hem, that is! Yikes!


So I went back to the drawing board and decided to go wide. I had this teal canvasy fabric that was a close match to one of the "books" so I added that to the sides, boxed the bottom, lined it in a cute ivory and teal polka dot print, and had a much more serviceable teacher bag! I did cut it straight with the grain, by the way, the print is kinda slanty like that.


So do you think it would be odd to give all four teachers the exact same bag? I thought maybe I could use different lining so they'd know whose was whose?