Afton's Patchwork Pencil Case

Here it is. The last weekend of the summer. We all head back to school on Tuesday.  It hit me last week that we had never made it to the beach. So, Saturday morning I loaded the kids in the car and headed to my mother's house which is within a 15 minute drive to Lake Huron.  

We spent 4 hours on the sand and in the water.  The wind was high and the waves were huge, but it didn't stop my little people from enjoying every minute.  

My oldest is already hoping we can head back to beach one more time before the real cold of the autumn season sets in.  I guess we'll have to wait and see....

While resting on the sand I had the  realization that our daughter is off to grade 1 and in need of her own set of school supplies.  Her big brother, in grade 3,  has a plastic pencil box to contain his pencils and markers, but I knew the little lady would like something with a bit more of a feminine touch.  

So when we got home from Nana's this morning I hauled out my charm pack collection and let Afton choose her favourite fabric squares.  

We agreed this was our ABSOLUTE favourite.  Like mother, like daughter!!

I cut the squares into smaller 3 inch squares and began sewing them together in a checkerboard pattern.  

For fun I added a row of ball fringe in Afton's favourite shade of fuchsia.  

To finish it off I sewed on a row of white white ric-rac trim (the cuteness is all in the details!) and picked a pink patterned fabric for the inner lining.  

TA-DA!!

I am so glad I can finally sew in a zipper without any problems.  It has taken me ages (literally decades!) to perfect this technique.  But this one went in like a breeze!

Did it pass first-grade daughter inspection??  

Oh yeah.  I think she likes it!!

I think she'll be very proud to pull this mom-made accessory out of her backpack on the first day of school.  

Cheers to all,

Bronwyn