Preschool Prep

In less than one month at the ripe age of two, K will start preschool. The school year starts in April and you can start pre-preschool (two days a week) the fiscal year you turn three. K turns three at the end of April, putting him at the older end of his class. But to me, he still seems so little. The bus will pick K up at 7:53 and drop him off at 2:26. This is going to be a huge adjustment for both of us, but he's going to love it and I'm going to love the time to relax and focus on the new baby.

For preschool K needs a number of bags and such that parents have the option of buying or making. I'm sure you can guess that I'm opting to make them. K, Y and I went to the fabric store together and I told K that he can pick out any fabric he wants for his school bags. He couldn't decide between Thomas, cartoon Shinkansen, and the more realistic Shinkansen. We bought them all, as well as some lining and accent fabrics. Ahhh, so fun.

I started by making his book bag, not to be confused with the school backpack. This bag is solely for books. The school gave us loose sizing guidelines for this bag. I followed them adding a few extra centimeters on either end for seam allowances, as well as for any mistakes along the way (see below).

The cartoon Shinkansen was the cutest fabric, in my opinion, so I chose that for this bag. I cut out my rectangles for the outside of the bag, as well as the lining and then two rectangles in the accent fabric to go at the bottom of the bag.

 

I started with the lining and sewed on a small pocket. Pockets are always useful - tissues, cars, trains, who knows what K fancies on any given day.

 

Then I got to work on the outside. The Shinkansen fabric was much thicker than the accent fabric, so I thought it would be best to just sew the dots onto the Shinkansen base to keep the strength of the bag - it is for his books, after all. I was a complete airhead doing this, however, and sewed the dots on one centimeter too high, so I had to cut off the bottom centimeter of the Shinkansen fabric. Good thing I had the foresight to give myself some wiggle room when I cut the fabric.

 

Every bag, crayon, article of clothing, etc. must be labeled with the child's name. I had Y write out the labels because of course his writing is much nicer than mine. Then I sewed the name tape onto the front of the bag. My new sewing machine can do stiches other than just straight and zig zag, so I had a little fun picking out an edging for the name tag. K sees railroad tracks in anything, and I thought this edging would be no different.

 

Then I basted the straps to the bag and sewed the tops of the lining and outer together.

 

Then I lined up all of the fabrics and sewed around the edge leaving a hole on the side of the lining for turning.

 

I flipped and stitched up the hole. In the morning, I showed the bag to K and he was stoked. He loved it.

 

Because I think it's adorable, here is a photo of K in his uniform. I had to do some minor adjustments, and hadn't yet done them when I took this photo, but I don't think you can tell too much. Eeek!! My baby's wearing a uniform!!