Totes by Two… or Three.

Scarily, the end of the school year is approaching stupidly fast. People always say time goes faster when you have kids. But I think time goes into warp speed once those kids start school. How is it possible my boy is nearly at the end of Kindergarten?! Surely I only just finished sobbing while making his bag tag for the first day of school.

Anyways. Moving on. With the end of year approaching, it’s also time to work on teacher’s gifts. I’ve decided to go with tote bags – they are fairly quick and easy to make and I won’t be heartbroken at the thought that they might not be used by the recipients, or instead be given to kids to play dress up with or carry mud pies in. Or something.



These will be given to the teacher’s aides who work in my son’s classroom. I have also made a third one for the casual teacher who has been a fairly regular fixture in the classroom these past couple of terms while the classroom teacher has been filling in as Acting Principal.



So I went with some simple boxed corner totes, decorated with raw edge applique. I used Sun Print Bike Paths for this leafy one. These prints are such pretty, vibrant colours! I think they pair beautifully with the light grey.



I added a little fleck of colour to the straps too to brighten them up a little. I wasn’t about to sacrifice too much of the Bike Path fabrics to make the straps all in that pretty fabric!



More Sun Print fabrics for this bag – Feathers this time. I used a similar shape to the one I made my Winterbound quilt with (side note: I will be sharing the finished quilt and listing the pattern for Winterbound very soon!).

You can tell I made these bags at the same time – similar fabric pulls – right down to chevron linings!
And the third one – simple little hexies using True Colours by Joel Dewberry. For some reason I didn’t get a photo of these three bags altogether. Probably because I made them at different times.



So that’s the gifts done for the teacher’s aides and casual teacher. Nice and easy. Oh I do need to remember to sew the inside closed before I give these away!

As for the teacher herself… well I am in a bit of a debate. I had made a lap quilt for her, but now I’m wondering if that’s a bit over the top. She has been a fabulous teacher and really made my son’s first year at school a great experience. I had a lot of worries sending my boy to school, not sure how he’d fit in with his various issues. We were fortunate enough to get a teacher who not only knew what SPD was, but someone who had a special interest in it. So she definitely went above and beyond to help him settle, and find strategies that worked for him. Hence my thinking she is totally quilt-worthy.



This is the quilt I made with the teacher in mind. Making quilts and gifts for people you know is hard. Making them for people you don’t really know is SUPER hard. Having no idea of tastes, style, favourite colours… it’s all a bit of a guess and a hope that it will suit. So I guess my debate is less a debate and more about my trepidation to give it to her not knowing if she’ll like it or not.

Fortunately I have 3.5 weeks to get over myself and just give it to the teacher like I originally planned. Or make myself crazy deliberating over it. Oh the dramas we quilters face!!