Learning to Sew

If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you'll know that I am teaching my 10-year-old granddaughter to sew.  She's a really enthusiastic student (I hope that enthusiasm translates to school subjects too!) but we've had problems fitting "lessons" into a schedule - especially with Christmas being so busy.  Still, all that's over for another year!

Keira can sew in a reasonably straight line using my machine and has made a few things already - she is justifiably quite proud of her makes.  We're moving onto bags (at her request) and this is where Abakhan comes in.  They have a huge range of fabrics, so...

I've ordered this gorgeous retro turquoise fabric which was kind of my starting point.  Then I noticed this cute butterfly fabric picked up some of the same colours:

and the lilac gingham might tie it all together. Pretty much everything is reduced at the moment, too!

A metre each of all this all comes in - even with interfacing - at under £15.  I expect we'll each get a lined tote bag from it, and even accounting for internal and external pockets, there will be fabric left over for other projects (purses, key rings, phone pouches, maybe?).  It's all a little bit girlier than my usual style, but I suspect it's exactly the right level of girliness for Keira!

I must admit, the fabrics all feel very summery and I think that working on something like this when the days are short and cold gives you that feeling of looking forward to a lovely summer (even if the reality can be a bit of a wet let-down here in the UK!).

This is part of Abakhan's monthly £15 challenge, and Abakhan are kindly supplying this fabric.  I can't wait - fortunately their delivery times are pretty quick.