Back to school sewing (New lunch bags for our girls)


After eleven long weeks of summer, our girls are finally back in school from this week.  And I can't be happier.  Yippee!  From this fall, our older girl is in 5th grade and the younger one in 3rd.

As part of the back-to-school-sewing, I sewed up these lunch bags for my girls, using the fabrics they selected.  And guess what?  Yes, they chose pink again!  And this time, the fabrics they chose are not pastel pink, but they're GLITTERY pink, which were too flashy for their middle aged mama to deal with \*o*/


Just like many "tween" girls out there, our girls are into these peace signs now.  I picked up this fabric from our local Joann store.  It's 100% cotton.



And this cotton fabric is from Japan.  Tiny stars all over and the background is NEON pink!



You may recall this handmade lunch bag that I made earlier for my younger daughter using oil cloth (or acutally it was laminated cotton).  

She still likes this one, but this time, she asked me if I could make one that is smaller in size to easily fit in her school bag.  Also, she wanted the zipper opening, and not the drawstring opening, so I made the ones with the zipper opening this time.  (I told you that my kids are picky!)
 



Before I began sewing, I had to make sure that the new lunch bags can actually fit the thermos and the plastic containers inside.  So, I began with making my own paper pattern using scrap papers (old calendars).





The end result:  The new lunch bags were able to fit our girls' lunch boxes snugly :)




 I used laminated cotton for the lining this time.




For the bottom, I used black cotton fabric, because these bags can  get really dirty when they are taken to school!

Side view



And OMG the opening part was SO HARD to sew, with several layers of fabrics and materials to sew together.   The cotton for the outer fabric + the laminated cotton lining + cotton webbing for the handles + the  fleece batting + the zipper = sewn altogether at once!  
 



With some left over laminated cotton, I made these small pouches to go with the lunch bags. 
The girls plan to store hand sanitizers and (occasional) ice cream money in here.



For the first day of school, the girls brought some pasta and fruits in these new lunch bags (and they were completely empty when they returned from school!)





5 comments:

cocostitch said...

ママ、お疲れ様でーす。またしてもピ・ン・クゥ♪ですね。飽きないんですね、ガールズには。(笑)
このランチバック、良く出来ていますね。私が日本で買ったものとよく似ています。ランチバック以外にも、普通にトートとして使えそう!

Unknown said...

Cocostitchさん、このランチバッグに使った布はどちらもただのピンクではなく、正に「ド・ピンク」という色合いで私は縫いながら目がチカチカして大変でしたよ。 それにしてもうちのガールズたちは赤ん坊の頃からなるべくピンクを着せずに、どちらかというと青系の服で育ててきたのに、その反動か?今はピンク一色で恐ろしいことになっています。そろそろ飽きてきてもいい頃なんですけどねえ…。

PY said...

I like both of them. Sweet and lovely !

Anonymous said...

I found your blog today, after doing my first project with laminated cotton,and looking for bento bag inspiration,only to find you used the same fabric (the red and white hearts), and now on this post you used the same fabric I used to make my daughters first bento bag (the pink with the stars!). I live in Japan, so bought the fabric here, but still...coincidence! Your bags look fab!

Unknown said...

Hi, japanmama! Nice to meet you (online ;) I'm so glad you found me, and oh, what a coincidence that we used the same fabrics to make our kids' bento bags! I guess we have similar taste in fabrics, or is it our kids?? Thanks again and happy sewing!!

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails