Portable sewing kits for Christmas

In my study break since the end of September I've been in a sewing spree. Once the Advent Calendar and all its contents were complete, I made a couple of sewing accessory storage bags for my elder daughter as a Christmas gift. 

I had bought a fat quarter of Lewis & Irene fabric with dogs on it (she loves dogs) and decided that a useful gift would be a bag which she could use for storing and carrying her sewing/embroidery projects (she had started making some badges with embroidery thread on canvas). I bought a small plastic storage box for embroidery threads, an embroidery thread winder, some embroidery hoops, needles and small scissors. I designed the bag to be able to hold projects in progress on the one side (where I placed the embroidery hoops in two large pockets), then on the other side I made a deep pocket for the thread box which had shallow pockets in the dog fabric for storing things like packets of needles, a pocket for holding the thread winder, a needle case with felt flaps for the needles and a detachable case for holding the embroidery scissors. This little scissors case has felt stitched into the inside of the tip for protecting the scissor points and can clip onto a strap in the bag.

The embroidery project storage bag opened out

The embroidery project storage bag opened out, with the thread winder in its pocket

The embroidery project storage bag with the needle case flapped open

The embroidery thread storage box emerging from its pocket

The embroidery hoops emerging from the project storage pockets

The embroidery storage bag closed before the button flaps were fastened

The embroidery storage bag closed with the button flaps and snap fastenings closed

I subsequently decided that a sewing roll for holding all her accessories would be a useful gift so I found a fat quarter of sewing inspired fabric (another Lewis & Irene design), searched for as many different examples of portable fabric sewing kits as possible for design and layout inspiration then started sketching out layouts and made a list of accessories she was likely to want to store in the kit. I bought some accessories I knew she didn't already have (the steel rule, rotary cutter, scissors sharpener, tweezers, snap fasteners and also bought a packet of sewing needles though I knew she had some already.

The sewing roll opened out

The sewing roll opened out with the needle case open
and the pocket for pins or a small pin cushion

Storage pockets for a rotary cutter, 6 inch steel rule, measuring tape and tweezers

The scissors storage pocket in between thread reel storage
(my sewing scissors were inserted for the photo)

storage pockets for scissors sharpener, snap fasteners and spare needles with thread reel storage

The outer flaps folded in

The roll closed but not tied with the ribbons

The closed up sewing roll tied up

My elder daughter was very pleased with these sewing storage bags when she opened her gifts on Christmas evening after singing for 3 services in York Minster during the day. She has subsequently spent time winding embroidery threads, arranging her accessories in the pockets and putting needles in the needle cases. She also added two additional cords for thread reel storage into the sewing roll as she had several thread reels in addition to those I had provided.

Kit review of Galt pony

Galt 'Sew a Pony' kit - aged 8 to adult

My 8 year old daughter was given this kit for her birthday. It is more complex than the felt doll she sewed for herself and she needed adult help. I decided that because there was a lot of sewing involved this was a good opportunity to start teaching her how to use a sewing machine, however, rather than teach her with the electric machine, and because she had seen an old working sewing machine at Bletchley Park the previous day, I decided my old 1920s Singer could do with some exercise and she was up for the fun.

So for the first time in about 17 years I got the old Singer going again.   There is a story attached to this machine, but I'll tell you about that in another post.

My girl setting up her sewing on the Singer machine,
notice the pattern pieces on the sheet

Sewing on the Singer machine

The machine can only stitch ordinary straight running stitch, it cannot stitch backwards or do any fancy patterns.  It needed a little adjustment and threading it was an entertainment (fortunately I had left some thread in it so I had some guidance).  It seemed to stitch fairly evenly some of the time, then was occasionally uneven, so eventually we changed to my electric machine to complete the kit.

The kit comes with the pieces ready cut, but also with the complete set of pieces printed on a sheet of brown tissue paper for you to match the pieces to it before you start sewing, and this also means you could cut out your own pieces in your own fabric if you wanted to.  The pads of the hooves are in a shiny stretchy fabric which is a little tricky to sew.  Some of the sewing she did was by hand, using back stitch, however she quickly tired of this in fabric which resisted the needle, which was another reason to use the machine.  Most of the fabric is patterned polyester cotton, easy to sew but there were many seams, a daunting task for an inexperienced sewer.

The order of stitching is fairly complex, I don't think she would have managed this kit without the help of an experienced needlewoman.  I did a fair bit of the machine sewing, simply because I could sit and reach the foot treadle, whereas she couldn't, however she still took a keen interest in helping put the pony together and helped turn parts right side out and stuff the body parts at various stages.  She is delighted with the results (she decided the embroidered nostrils weren't needed) and plays with this little pony quite a lot.  The limbs are fastened on with embroidery thread and buttons, so they sort of swivel a bit.

The completed pony with her box

It was a satisfying kit to assemble, the instructions were comprehensive and clear and the results are good.  But it definitely requires fairly experienced skills to complete.

The completed pony, called 'Emily' apparently