Back To School

This summer I was going to do it-be prepared before school starts…and not just a little prepared, A LOT prepared. I am talking about going above and beyond laying the kids clothes out the night before and making sure everything on the supply list is checked off. No, this year I was going to go big-handmade, homemade backpacks. After I made the decision to go Martha Stewart on the bags, I saw a news clip on safe back to school items- you know those plastic covered backpacks that have your kids favorite super hero on them? Well, they are deadly, dangerous, and going to cause all sorts of growth abnormalities. Never mind you actually have to EAT the plastic, and a lot of it, to have a chance of growing an extra arm, or shrinking 10 inches overnight-but that is neither here nor there-I saw the clip and was feeling very justified in my choice to make my kids bags using homegrown cotton fibers.

 I have been on a handmade kick lately, and my ego is getting the best of me...I seem to think that if I can Google it, I can make it (I learned the hard way this concept does not translate well when repairing ones iPhone using YouTube). Eva had NO faith in me. She was very insistent of having a monogrammed chevron backpack “from a store, not mommy's sewing room.” I ignored her wishes and about a month ago downloaded a pattern for a child's backpack. I made the prototype for Eva (picture not shown) and she hated it. It did not “look like a real backpack” and “the pink is not pink enough.” In all honesty my feelings were not really hurt, it was the practice backpack, and it was also going to be too small for her needs. So I took matters into my own hands and created a pattern from her current bag by flipping it inside out and tracing the pieces. I decided on making Eva the large one from my pattern I made and the smaller one for Ben from the online pattern. After 3 days and a few hundred ripped and redone stitches later, I finally had Eva’s backpack done-and she loves it.

Ben’s bag was my third one, so I finished it pretty quickly and was able to remedy all the mistakes I had made in the first two by the time I got to Ben's. I kept double checking the size of his bag against a regular 8.5 x 11 folder since I knew he would be bringing home an empty bag four days a week, and the Friday folder on Fridays (clearly). Last Wednesday during his orientation we learned there are no more Friday folders-but daily binders! A daily binder was not going to fit in his small bag along with his lunch box-so back to the fabric store I went. Using the large pattern from Eva’s bag I was able to make backpack number 4 in just a few hours-with minimal mistakes-practice really does help.

So what the moral to this edition of “the stuff that mom makes?” Well, there are a few: first, it is really only a matter of days, if not hours before Eva will be over anything I create for her. I can see the writing on the wall (and in her face), she wants stuff from a store-boo blech. Second, if you want to learn how to make a backpack, sewing piping, add your own pockets, or sew a long zipper, I can show you.  And lastly-there is a reason “made in China” so much cheaper. After THREE trips to the fabric store, I spent over $100 on material and notions (the extra stuff you need when sewing things), which is twice what I would have spent if I had just gotten the bags from Kohl's that were on-sale.