Lemon Tree Tales: Sewn Goodies for Miss L and Miss J

Hand sewn goodies are always on my list to make for the too-quickly-growing young ladies, Miss L and Miss J. A conversation that I had with them a month or two ago triggered an idea. The little Miss J was talking about our hobbies - she likes to color, Miss L and I like to sew, Steve likes racing, their dad likes hockey, and their mom likes to make cards. Hmm, why not make them something for their hobbies?

For Miss J, a quilted cover for a blank sketchbook. I used her lovely drawing as the centerpiece. It was scanned and printed on silk. The first one was too washed out so I had to use Adobe Photoshop to saturate the colors to a crazy intensity. I then picked fabrics that would coordinate with the sketch. Oddly enough quite a few of them were the same purples that I've been using for the last baby quilt and the Miss Molly doll. Hmm, does that ever happen to you? The same fabrics popping up for a spell?

The front cover:

The back cover:

And the inside:

Basically it was constructed as a quilted table runner, minus the binding and the lining was sewn after I quilted the top layer to flannel. It was top-stitched, then the flaps were folded back and top-stitched again. That ended up being too loose so I did an additional top-stitch 3/8" from the edge. The sketch book is spiral bound so that it'll lay flat when Miss J is drawing and coloring. Plus she can rip out the pages if she wants.

Now for Miss L I decided to make her a sewing kit for the next time that we get together for another sewing lesson. Back in 2006 I made a similar kit as part of my Back-Tack 3 gift. Of course when I went to the original online tutorial for making the box bag I discovered that it was gone! Fortunately I still had my pattern pieces so I didn't have to draft one.

A close-up of the covered tape measure (tutorial here at Whipup.net) and the scissors case (made from a microsuede):
Yes, I ended up using the leftovers of that gorgeous backing fabric from the latest baby quilt. I just can't get enough of this fabric - the colors are so beautiful! In case you're wondering, it's #PJ 27 Summer Tree by Phillip Jacobs for Rowan.