Whatever, It's A Pencil Bag

School is coming up, and after seeing some really cute pencil bags on Pinterest, I decided I should find myself one. One bag I saw online had simple white canvas with "plants are friends' stitched in along with some lil stitched plants. I thought that was adorable, so in search of a blank pencil bag I headed to Target, then to Wal-Mart the next day. Not able to find a bag of any sort I liked, I decided I might as well make one.

 

excuse the profanity, haha

     Just the other day I got some cross stitch fabric (blue and white, both size 14) and, wanting to try my hand at cross-stitching, decided that's what my pencil bag would be made out of. Following the directions of this tutorial, I got to work. I started by picking and printing off the pattern I chose, which was a little unicron (yes, unicron), of course.  Printing is optional, but I did because it makes the process of stitching a lot easier on the eyes. Using the blue aida material and some plain white cotton for the lining, I snipped out the pieces I'd need. Rather than using regular thread, I got myself some nice embroidery floss, which is particularly used for cross-stitching. For my purposes, I pulled apart the floss so that I had only four strings for each piece I used. If you use floss, you'll know what I mean, but normal thread works just as fine. To stitch in the unicorn, I used a small hoop, but that also isn't necessary; half way through, I stopped using the hoop because it was easier to not to. Usually, using the hoop leaves an indention, so I had to run a hot iron over it to get the creases out. I would suggest flipping over the fabric and NOT ironing straight onto the image stitched. I did and it left some burn marks or something on the white of the unicorn. After finishing the stitching, I made a quick Jo-ann's run and got a purple zipper. Fortunately the tutorial I used was pretty explanatory, because sewing the zipper on was rather difficult. Sewing the pieces together, on the other hand, took no time at all; the longest point was me deciding whether or not I should put a tag, and I decided against it. For two days, in my spare time, I stitched this little gem together and I have to say I really love how it turned out.

hot iron burn marks are barely visible, thank gosh

     What I spent the most time on was the cross-stitching. Piecing the bag together was quick; I've sewn a bag before and I've sewn a zipper before. Cross-stitching, on the other hand, was a new experience for me. But, I have to say, I wish I'd known what cross stitching was earlier. It's a simple method that has so many variations. Pixilated images from video games and whatnot are super simple to transform into a cross stitch pattern. There are also websites and programs that can be used to make your very own patterns from most images. Pic2Pat is a great pattern-making website I discovered on Pinterest. It's free and easy to use. Cross-stitching is fun, simple, and not all that expensive. Most floss skeins are only about 40 cents each and the aida (cross stitch fabric) is pretty cheap and can be bought in large quantities. Though it can be quite time consuming, the finished product is well worth it.

     I plan on making several other cross-stitched things and look forward to sharing them! If you have any suggestions, just drop them in the comments below, thanks!