Thursday, June 27, 2013

Lunch Buckets for Teachers


Last week was Bug Party Week.

This week is Lunch Bucket Week.

Over my many, many years of sewing, I've realized that my favorite projects are bags. I like sewing clothes, but I get easily burnt out sewing them. I think it's because I'm so particular about fit and drape and stuff like that - it makes me wait until I have a big chunk of time to measure, draft, baste, adjust, pick the right fabric and all those other serious garmentmaking necessities- that it never happens. I mean, where would I find big chunks of time? I'm a stay-home mother of three small daughters, who runs a haphazard blog-pattern-etsy-business; my life consists of disconnected 10-minute packets of time interspersed with emergencies and crises. And that's just when I'm not cooking or cleaning something sticky/encrusted off the floor.

Bags, though, totally work with those discrete 10-minute time quanta. They're mostly geometrical shapes, so they require hardly any thought at all. I can plan their structure while in the bathroom, sketch their schematic diagrams on the backs of grocery store recipes while in line at the supermarket checkout, pull fabrics out of my homedec and canvas stash on my way to drop off a bunch of Tinkertoys in the playroom, lay out rectangles and circles while waiting for the oven to preheat, and stitch - sans basting- in between laundry and dishwasher loads and bedtime song crooning. True, bags are still work and those 10-minute time segments still add up and I'm still anal about the workmanship, but then, my bags actually get made. Unlike most of the clothes I've planned in my head. 

Bottomline: you've gotta love bagmaking!

And, boy, will I find any excuse to do it.

Like when the girls were done with their school year and said goodbye-and-thank-you to their teachers. They brought Lunch Buckets with them. 

Which their mother made while procrastinating on sewing a dress for a wedding. Which seems to be an annual tradition.

If you're new to my Lunch Buckets, they have swivel-able, detachable straps, a drawstring cover and a wipe-cleaning lining (this one is oilcloth).

This first bucket was for a teacher whose favorite color we weren't quite sure of. So I went a bit nuts with print and hues. Here's another angle:


This next one was for a teacher who loves purple.


Next up: Lunch Buckets to buy! 


9 comments:

  1. Your purple lunch bucket looks so sweet- especially the shade of the piping and bias tape used! :)

    Oh, and could I ask, would you be showing us your dress? ;P

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  2. I love those lunch buckets! I bought one from you last year, bought your pattern this spring and made one for my daughter and now that I see yours again I'm feeling motivated to make another one. I love how the one I made turned out so great with your excellent pattern and instructions. You are so talented! Your girls have lucky teachers!

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  3. Sigh. I have so many patterns and pattern books that I'd have to live to be over 150 and make something new every other day to even make a dent in all the things I've already paid for. But, man, do I want to justify buying your ikat bag lunch bucket pattern. You make such beautiful things - little people included. :0)

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  4. I am new to your blog and I honestly have never heard of a lunch bucket! What a great (and adorable) idea! Do you have a pattern for them?

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    1. Elisa Clark: Yes, thank you for asking! You can read about it here:

      http://www.ikatbag.com/2012/05/lunch-bucket-pattern.html

      and buy it here:

      http://www.ikatbag.com/p/patterns-for-sale.html

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    2. Great! Thank you. I just pinned it and will hopefully get to make one soon! You're a genius! :)

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  5. My kids are out of school, my grandkids are homeschooled, and I stay at home, but these are so cute I think I would pack my lunch just so I could eat out of one of these totally darling bags every day!

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  6. Gee... you're making me feel like making another one of those buckets! (If I could ever break my addiction to sewing AG doll clothes.)

    Love the buttons on that first bucket!

    Yeah... whatever happened to that dress post?

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  7. Love your lunch buckets. Someday I will get brave enough to buy your pattern and sew one.

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