WFMW-More sewing

I've been doing a lot of sewing over the last month, and it's all by hand, since my machine is in storage (sob).

For my son's birthday, we bought him two wooden toys: a set of stacking rings, and a toy train. Both came in boxes. While boxes are wonderful for stacking, they take up a lot of space--space we don't have (especially in our suitcases when we go back to the States!)--so I needed a different storage solution that would corral all the pieces.

Meanwhile, one of my husband's t-shirts became threadbare at various points and was unwearable. Rather than throw it out, I chose to repurpose the parts that were still perfectly good to make bags for my son's toys. Here's how I did it:

(I made two bags with this shirt, these pics are from the second bag)

1. I was using the torso of the t-shirt. So I lay out the shirt as flat as I could and tucked the toy the bag was going to hold inside the shirt, close to the side fold and hem.



2. I moved the toy back (up towards the underarm) until I could gather the hem (the width of the toy + ease) closed without the toy slipping further back.


3. I noted that point, slipped the toy out, flattened the fabric, and cut the fabric to the correct dimensions, taking advantage of the side fold of the t-shirt, so I only had to cut one piece of fabric.



4. With right-sides-facing, I folded my piece of fabric in half and sewed it along the two sides that I cut--NOT the hemmed side--leaving the side seam open at the hem.


5. I crocheted a chain out of some leftover yarn (a braid would have worked just as well) and threaded the resulting chord through the hem. Then I tied off the chord to make it a drawstring.
   
   These bags have been so handy. They keep everything looking nice, but my son can get into them by himself. All I have to do is get the bag out, and he can play to his heart's content. Here's a post at another blog (Erin at Sutton Grace) from someone with a similar idea.

For more handy ideas, check out Works for Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family!