Logan’s Busy Bag September 30, 2008

Lately I’ve been wanting to sew just little fun, fast projects. This past week I finished up this “busy bag” for my little friend, Logan. He turned 3 last month, so I was a little late, but I’ve been Busy!

I had a couple of ideas for Inspiration, I bought some patterns at the AQS Nashville Quilt show, and I did some surfing and I found a site that had some instructions for making a busy bag.

I used some race car and black/white check fabric that I had “stashed”. I think I had actually made some Halloween costumes out of the fabric a few years ago. It was a directional print, so I cut and flipped the fabric so the cars wouldn’t be “upside down” when the bag was closed.

I machine appliqued Logan’s name using letters from “Sew Many Designs” . The letters are red ultrasuede.

For the inside, I didn’t have enough of the fabric for a continuous piece of fabric, so I pieced in the black/white checks. I used fusible fleece for the batting, and “quilted” thru the seams. I cut off the corners at a 45 degree angle to sorta match the bags from the inspiration instructions.

I decided that instead sewing and turning the fabric I would “bind” it with the black/white check to add to the racing vibe.

The pattern from the website uses plastic ziplop bags for the pockets. I didn’t think those would hold up too long for a 3 year old. When I was “back to schoo”l shopping, I noticed the bright zippered pencil holders. I had planned to cut those up to use for the pockets. But, when I brought it all home and started playing with it, I thought well, you know, this would hold more “stuff” and be more flexible if it were more like a “notebook”. So I took apart a 1″ binder that was around the house that my kids had demolished the cover anyway. My husband helped remove the brads that attached it to the old notebook binding leaving nice holes to use to attach the rings to the quilted fabric. I did some loops with some thread worked like a buttonhole stitch to better secure the rings.

I added some handles and velcro and loaded it up with some goodies that I thought would keep a 3 year old boy busy!. I gave it to Logan this weekend, and I think he liked it!