Getting ready for school

With only a month until school starts, it's time to make sure Miss M has all the bits and bobs she needs. First up on the sewing schedule was a lunch box. 

After trialing a variety of fancy set ups when our eldest started, the best arrangement I came up with was an insulated case and a mix of different containers.With this in mind, I decided to make Miss M her own lunch box.

As luck would have it, I had a copy of Gingercake's Love Your Lunch Box sitting on my computer, bought in a pattern bundle about 2 years ago.  Even better, I had a remnant of PUL in my stash, along with some insulbrite left over from Christmas potholders last year.

The pattern was a pretty easy and relatively quick sew. The most frustrating part was the cutting. With main fabric, lining, insulation and interfacing, I felt like I was cutting forever. One change I made was to line the side pockets, and to adjust the construction to make the finish a little better.

This was my first time sewing with PUL. I used wonder clips and pinned in the seam allowance to avoid putting holes in the fabric.  And I placed tissue paper between the PUL and feed dogs or presser foot (depending whether it was on top or bottom) to stop the fabric sticking and stretching.  The tissue paper worked a treat, especially when I had strips cut so that the 'grain' of the paper meant it tore easily from the stitching.

Finished off with a name tag attached under the flap - handsewn on cause I didn't think of adding it till the end.

I'm pretty happy with the result. Unfortunately, I should have listened to my gut .... As I was cutting, I thought some of the pieces looked a little small, and one of the measurements given didn't quite fit the pattern pieces I had.  Of course I persisted, and only tried reprinting the pattern pieces (with slightly different printer settings) once it was all finished.  Here's the difference in size:

Unfortunately there was no test square in the pattern pieces, so the problem wasn't obvious.  So while the lunch bag is useful, I guess I'll be making another, just a smidge bigger.  Or maybe two, cause I could do with a nice new lunch bag (that can be thrown in the wash when dirty). I just need to work up the enthusiasm to go tracking down more Insulbrite at Spotlight (hope I find that enthusiasm before school starts!)