Drawstring pouch

Been looking after my niece for a few afternoons in the summer holidays. It was so good to see her take such delight in the contents of our sewing room! I think she thought she was in heaven when she saw our material and ribbon collection! She asked if she could make some little bags that were small enough for her to put the salt dough items she made the previous visit, into. Fortunately, she gave us a bit of advance notice, so my friend and I spent a little time yesterday making a template up and working out how best to make them. We used some old curtains and chopped them up, so as not to waste any good material! I think we ended up making about 5 prototypes, all of different sizes! The good thing about making so many of course, was that the repetition of making them burned the 'how to' into my mind - which is brilliant coz I don't have much of a memory! I did confess to my niece that we'd practised making them the day before and she was amazed that we'd done that just for her - bless! My niece did all the sewing herself, though threading the sewing machine needs some more teaching!

I explained the Frixion pen to her and I don't think she could quite believe it. I think she thought it was 'magic' that the iron made the pen's ink disappear. That was the only time she ventured near the iron, apparently she can't iron to save her life - to which of course I said that what she needed was PRACTISE! Tee-hee, don't worry auntie didn't make her do it! Last week I had my nephew for the afternoon and he ended up going home with two plasters on him, so I thought I'd better not let my niece near the iron...just in case! We managed to make three small drawstring bags (this pink one is the one we made yesterday!) and one larger bag. We think they're really cute!

One thing we did learn....when threading the ribbon through the material 'tunnel' in the top of the bag, we used a safety pin but if you pierced the ribbon just once, it would fray and the safety pin and the ribbon part company! So to counteract this, if you pierce the ribbon twice with the safety pin this tends to prevent this happening. We're always learning!