Monday, August 09, 2010

Lego Sack with Window

Before our vacation, I spent a lot of time gathering books and toys to take with us. I searched for anything portable and with enough substance to keep the 2-year old occupied for "long" stretches of time. She loves legos (it's in the genes on both sides) and seemed ready for the upgrade to the smaller size so I bought the big set of pink Legos from Amazon. Of course we couldn't bring the massive tub with us on the plane so I decided to make a bag for them.

I had seen this amazing drawstring toy sack tutorial on Make it Perfect through Craft Gossip. At the time, I just thought it was very clever. I had no plans to actually make it. But then I bought some Yo Gabba Gabba panties and they came in this nice little pouch. Of course, I threw it away and had to dig it out of the trash when the thought came to me to make a little window out of the vinyl just like in the tutorial.

I wanted something more case-like so I didn't even follow the tutorial at all beyond the inspiration (although that might not have been a bad idea because she uses paperclips to hold the fabric to the vinyl since you can't pin through it. I just fought with it instead). I used Lizzy House's Red Letter Day again with the Pearl Bracelet print and more ducks. The tree stump fabric is by Jay McCarroll, my favorite winner of Project Runway, and grosgrain ribbon for the handles.

This, surprisingly, was not too difficult to make. I had to do a drawing of what I had in my head. Then I added some measurements to that. Then I kind of exploded the drawing and added seam allowances to my edges to figure out what to cut. The bottom has a layer of stabilizer/interfacing in it and I wish I would have used it on all sides because now that the case has seen some use, it's not as stiff as I would like. I expect our Lego collection to outgrow this soon but I'm impressed with it. Even though it is not perfect, I was proud to pull it off.