Tote Bag as Teacher Gift

Somehow school being out seemed to creep up on me somehow this year, even though it felt really odd to go back after Memorial Day this year (this is the first time in many years that we've had to go back).  I guess maybe it isn't that the end of the year crept up, but rather that I needed to do something about end-of-the-year teacher gifts.

So, I hunted up the page saying what the teacher likes - hmm, cats is one thing.  I could do something with that....  look through my fabrics and I came up with several.  Not enough time to do a quilt, but maybe a bag.  So Tuesday morning I cut strips and sewed the front and back together.  Then after lunch I took the pieces over to the school and "borrowed" the kids out of class for a few minutes one by one and had them sign one side.

Then the other side was blank.  Not so good.  Hmmm.  I tried out several options - would a different strip work, or a big THANKS.  Or... hey, I have some cat prints - try that out.  Yes, I like it!

I finished up the whole bag except for the hand stitching of the top binding on Tuesday.  It would have been much harder if I'd had to supervise homework that night, but A had no homework all week.  Then Wednesday I finished the last of the hand stitching and gave it to his teacher on Thursday.  She was very pleased (and now she knew why I had needed to borrow the kids on Tuesday).