Cotton Candy

I finally got around to signing the little one up for Ballet class. Class timings are so tricky when you have two kids. I have to consider so many clashing schedules and let’s say I’ve put this off for too long. While signing her up, we needed to get her a new set of ballet gear. Then she wanted one of those standard run of the mill polyester ballet bags that they sell for at least 50 bucks each at the ballet school. No, I said, Mummy will make you one. One that is much much nicer.

These ballet fabrics have been stashed away since my older girl was still taking lessons, which is at least 2 years ago. I bought two different colors, plus co-ordinating fabric, all waiting patiently in a pile because I never got round to signing up the little one for classes. No way will I let a polyester bag take over my joy of making this one! This was not a very easy bag to make. It was a custom size bag because I am always concerned about water bottles not standing upright and wetting all the clothes and the leather ballet shoes. So the bag had to be tall enough to fit the water bottle. The pattern was easy enough, since it was all boxy. But I wanted to make it using the heavyweight interfacing. Same one I used for my own wallet. This retains the shape very well and allows the bag to stand up on its own. But it is quite hard to sew with on a domestic sewing machine. Luckily my Janome survived. After the bag was sewn, the handles had to be sewn on by hand. Which was quite hard because of the hard interfacing. It took 4 separate sessions because my fingers get all crampy and painful after sewing each attachment. Anyway, here is the bag. I’m very pleased with it