When a friend asked me to make a bag for her son I agreed. I thought to myself how hard could it be and got to work that very afternoon after our meeting.
Initially the project seemed similar enough to the sewing kit bags I often make on a sewing machine. The desired bag was one inteaded to neatly store 12 pieces of chalk which is required at a local waldorf school for the younger students.
In the end this project required work on the sewing machine as well as sections sewn by hand. Making a pocket four twelve different pieces of chalk was actually quite challenging despite having a similar, smaller bag to use as an example.
The example chalk bag is the light canvas bag with a red piece of chalk sitting above it. The original bag was flimsy and had only eight pockets for holding the rainbow of chalk colors plus black, brown, grey and white chalk too.
As someone who usually sticks to very simple sewing projects like patching pants and creatiing draw string bags it was nice to have a little example bag to work from. Even still I pretty much had to create a pattern from scratch and there was a lot of trail and error. The first try resulted in a super tiny chalk bag. The second try was a bit too big and needed to be trimmed up.
I needed to make a much sturdier bag and decided to use the same materials that I make sewing kits with. And as this bag is meant for a nine year old boy, my best friend's son who I have known for years, I picked this fox print I thought he would enjoy.
Once I had created the pockets and structure with a machine came the fun part of hand sewing the decorative cover of the fox fabric over the outside of the case.
And as the boy who will be using this bag is quite clumsy and does everything in a rush, I chose to use an elastic fastener instead of fabric strings that would need to be tied in a bow.
Honestly, I am quite happy with how this turned out! Throughout the process I cursed my willingness to try a more challenging project. Coming up with a functional design broke my brain for a second there, I must admit. Now, with the bag finished and on it's way to it's first day of school, I feel quite accomplished and ready to make rollable cases for other art supplies next.
