School Supplies

Done it. Two pencil cases delivered to the recipients. Tick that box! And put away all scraps of the denim before my machine really spits its dummy out. I think the bent needle was the shot across the bows and its less than subtle way of telling me it has had enough. On the bright side, if you are ever looking for men's jeans - these M&S ones seem really well made and the denim is very thick!

First up, Emily's pencil case. She wanted a flower too. And for me to use the denim. I used some It's a Hoot and my last red zipper. The pencil case is very simple for a simple reason. She doesn't actually need it. For those who don't live in the UK it sometimes comes as a surprise that children in schools here, especially primary schools, do not have to bring in their own supplies.

All pencils, work books, rulers, paper - pretty well everything but the uniforms - is supplied by the school. So much so, that when Emily asked if she could bring in a particular pen she liked last year to use in class she was told no. It seems that the perceived wisdom was that her having her own pen might generate pen envy and suddenly all the Y5s would want to bring in their own as well. This pouch won't exactly be filled with pens and pencils, but I am sure it will come in handy anyway.

Helen's pouch is bigger and slightly more elaborate. She wanted it to match the book bag I made her yesterday. I wanted it to have a special pocket for her geometry set. In the false hope that this would prevent her from losing mislaying it. Only time will tell if the pocket does its job. Her pouch is lined with the same fabric as the book bag. It is a quilting cotton that I have a heap of. I think I entrusted himself to pick some backing fabric up for me once when we live on the IoW. I know! What was I thinking?!

The fabric is neither to my taste particularly, nor as soft as most quilting cottons despite being from Moda. Tell me, are backing fabrics sometimes made more robust? Anyway, it hangs about in the bottom of a storage box and comes in handy for projects like book bags and little else.

Finally, I got some happy post today. I won a prize from Alison at Little Island Quilting a little while back. I now have a fantastic supply of threads and some great Egyptian white cotton fabric. All from Empress Mills, right here in the UK. So a big thank you to Empress Mills and to Alison for this fabulous haul. Cotton threads, polyester threads and invisible threads. Brilliant! I've never tried invisible threads. That might require a bit of experimenting on my part. Always good fun.

Right, I have bits of black denim to pick up from all over the dining room. That stuff gets everywhere. I also have a poorly child. Not complaining, just stating the facts. In the scheme of things Emily has got the timing just right. After any exciting summer stuff has happened, and before school starts.

Susan