Some good friends of ours came up to visit earlier this week and on leaving left behind their six-year-old. This was quite intentional as they had an early factory tour (a highly expensive one I might add) of the local car plant and Riley was too young unlike his elder brother. In the aim to even things out for the boys and make it fair we concocted a much prized sleepover with us and fun craft morning. It took me back to the days of organising seasonal craft sessions when mine were younger. Sadly teenage years seems to have taken that away although I noticed one of them happily joined in, just to keep Riley company of course.

But what to do. My thoughts, perhaps quite selfishly, turned on what I would like to do but would also be a creative and productive session for Riley.  I had some fabric paints, stencils and of course plenty of fabric…

Riley quickly caught on to how to paint with stencils and we had great fun painting a couple of metres of prewashed yarn-dyed Essex linen and some plain white cotton.

After using stencils on the linen Riley wanted to go a bit Jackson Pollock with the plain white fabric. In fact some of it reminds me of Alison Glass’s handcrafted batiks! A budding fabric designer!! The plan was that he would choose his favourite designs and then I would incorporate them into a zipped pouch as a present for his mum.

I used the Lola pouch by Svetlana Sotak of  SOTAK Handmade .  I’ve used this pattern before and it’s become a firm favourite. It does take longer to make but it’s well worth it. Here’s the reverse….

I will dream up another use for the remaining fabric.

I’ve course I couldn’t resist having a little play and conscious that I’ve got a Christmas party this weekend for which I needed a gift I thought I’d use the Labrador stencil to use in another Lola bag for the hostess whose lab Lincoln  is the love of her life so I’m hoping it will go down well.

It always surprises me how just a modest difference of an inch or two when cutting out the pieces to make these bags changes the shape quite significantly.  The pattern gives you a large and a small but I’ve been trying to perfect a medium-size. So forgive the navel gazing and detailed measurements.  I always think I will remember next time what the measurements should be but I never do and these will be in the hands of others so  I can’t check measurements.

Of the two I prefer the shape of the Labrador bag as I think Riley’s bag is a bit dumpy.  With the benefit of hindsight I wish I had added extra fabric to the sides to make it wider. The width of Riley’s bag is 8 1/4 inches and the Labrador bag 9 inches so hardly a huge difference. The depth of the other pieces is for 4 1/2inches  and 4 1/4 inches respectively for the upper section and 3 1/2 inches and 3 1/4 inches for the lower sections. Again not a huge difference but I prefer the more oblong Labrador bag. I also made the boxed in seam 2 1/2 inches long (on both) not 2 inches as in the pattern. I like a flatter bottom! I think next time, and there definitely will be a next time for this lovely design,  I will go with 9 1/2 inch width and 4 1/4 inch depth for the top piece and 3 1/4 inch depth for the lower piece. In terms of interfacing I used a stiff interface Vilene s320 for Riley’s bag and ordinary cotton wadding but I prefer just the fusible wadding on the Labrador bag.

Now my sister in law has a much loved Labrador perhaps I need to do another bit of fabric painting ….

Linking up Crazy Mom Quilts and TGIFF.