September 1st
A perfect day for a new start!
Not only for Nand, our oldest son, who started in the 1st grade today.
Also a great opportunity to revive my blog, with a new look and from now on also in English.
For Nand I made a schoolbag. Making the bag has a lot of simularities with creating my new blog
- They were in my head for a long time, but I needed to gain some courage to start
- It was not easy, at all. het was niet simpel, echt niet, perseverance and folowing manuals -not my cup of tea- was realy necessary
- Once they started to form, I got more and more excited
- I enjoyed the proces of choosing colors and patterns
- Secretly, I’m very proud of the result
- Both of them are not perfect, but made with love
The difference with the schoolbag is that there can and will be a lot tweaks for the blog. I decided to go life now! If I wait until I think it’s perfect, it will never materialize.
So the blog is far from finalized. There are most likely things that don’t work or that are little strange. Your feedback is very welcome!
The schoolbag
I made Arend a self drawn backpack. This time I went for an incredibly well thought out model with a whopper of a manual consisting 77 steps, the Mix & Match van Mind the Whale. I’m going to be honest, as if I am not always honest, it was quite a task and a big adventure. Often it was necessary to take a break and motivate myself to continue working.
To be honest, Nand was my best motivator. His twinkling eyes, his sudden unconditional helpfulness, the compliments already from the beginning. “Mom, I’m proud of you”, “Mom, I’m going to have the coolest schoolbag of the world” …
This makes the bag perfect in my eyes.
My neurotic perfectionist side knows the mistakes and points them out regularly. Especially the fact that the lines of the flap do not correspond to those of the front pocket. I broke my head already, puzzled patterned parts and searched in the manual, but I can’t find where I went wrong.
The nicest thing about the bag is that Nand made the fabric with the cars himself. Last year at the lillestoff festival he got the chance to screen print with Orike (the lucky one, #jalousmum). He opted resolutely to put only some red race cars on the fabric. That piece of fabric was cherished by both of us and I waited for the perfect project.
Last Tuesday we were invited by the school to let our boys discover and meet their new class rooms and teachers. We tried to bring him to other thoughts, but he was very adamant. His bag just had to go with him. I heard him say proudly to his teacher, “and I’ve printed the cars myself!” . I then realized, how many kids can say they made a piece of their schoolbag themselves?
Like every year I got a blurry “No I do not want to pose as I’m on my way to school and do not follow me with the camera” picture 🙂
Some info
♥ Pattern: Mix & Match, Mind the Whale
♥ Fabrics: Polyester canvas, red coton, self printed canvas
♥ Adjustments / extra’s: I added some H630 on the lining
♥ Notes: Next time I will add some extra reinforcement to the back
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