Background: Last year I made my grandson a purple sparkly "tooth fairy bag". It wasn't very impressive, but he liked it. (I don't think I have a photo. It was another urgent project.)
His mom said his sister would need one exactly like his (except for color, of course). I promised I would make hers, so I cut the same fabric out in pink and set it aside for "when I got around to it".
She reminded me a little while back that the 5-year old had a loose tooth. Early this week, she told me there were now three loose teeth and one was getting pretty loose. I had a class on Friday and a haircut, so I promised I would make it Saturday. I had seen the little bit of fabric not very long ago, so it should be quick and simple, right?
Yesterday (Friday) at dinnertime, my daughter called to say the bag would be needed before bedtime!
I was deep into the remainder of my project I worked on in class, but I quickly put it aside and scrambled for the tiny bit of fabric (keeping in mind the fact that her favorite color changed from pink to turquoise in the meantime.) I could NOT find the pieces anywhere in the tip my space had gotten into while flying through so many fun projects!
Back to square one, and time is FLYING! They go to bed pretty early, too, but since school's out I told my daughter she might have to keep her up a tad late.
I scrambled for a cute piece of fabric you've seen on here earlier--I made a 2-year old a little dress from it this Easter.
http://nanabs-sewing-fun.blogspot.com/2011/04/two-year-old-was-coming-to-easter-lunch.html
I was so desparately in a hurry that I abandoned all my normal "frugal" fabric tendencies and cut a chunk out where I could get the only bright turquoise sparkly butterfly in a large space.
I cut "interlining" for it, and then commenced to go COMPLETELY dyslexic--much worse than I usually am. I couldn't picture my way through the process apparently and first I did the applique of her name and "tooth fairy" on the part of the bag that would become the INSIDE. I left her name, but ripped out the rest in case it would show somehow... (In too big a hurry to think anything through at this point, and obviously completely thinking-inhibited anyway.)
I then carefully laid out where the words actually WOULD have to go and applied them. "Name, Tooth Fairy, and "Bag" are the three lines (it's a NARROW tiny little bag).
I got the words on and carefully stitched the end together, leaving room to pull it through to the right side afterwards. Did this, and I had a long triangular thing--NO BAG AT ALL! And time is FLYING.....
I had two problems. It had to be a bag, and it had to have a drawstring (which was going through the buttonhole I had already applied before appliqueing all those words! How was I EVER going to accomplish this, in any amount of time, never mind in the time before she had to go to bed!
The solution to the "bag" problem was to hand-stitch each side firmly! (I actually did it twice--too complicated to try to explain.) Then turned the bag wrong-side-out and handstitch the binding tape to the inside of the bag--the ONLY way to get in there, and the only way to keep a channel free to run the drawstring all the way around.
When I was still stitching side two, my daughter and granddaughter showed up to collect the bag. She LOVED the pink sparkly fabric and really loved the turquoise butterfly on the back. But Nana kept on stitching...
I used somewhat heavy polyester thread that I usually only use for stitching mesh bags and things which really require tough thread. I stitched it down, and I HOPE it will hold. I inserted some really cool sparkly polyester cording I found at Joann's one day and picked up for Little Miss Turquoise, just in case--what a hit that was!
My only photo of the bright turquoise butterfly on the back has her beautiful face in it, so I had to trim it.
And here is the front. She's glad I lost the other fabric--she loves this!
It was at least 30 minutes past even her summer bedtime when they took the bag home for the Tooth Fairy to put a gold dollar coin in sometime during the night when fairies pay their visits to mortals. She was about falling asleep on her feet, but she was happy, her mom was relieved, and I was exhausted! (The exhaustion was not their fault--it was entirely my own fault.)
All I can say is this was a prime example of the old adage, "If it CAN go wrong, it WILL!"
Also, "All's well that end's well."
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