lego lunch box // plus a gingercake giveaway

I've been sewing lunch bags for my husband for ages now. The memory of sitting on our living room floor, fabric and hand drawn diagrams sprawled out under the cloud of my mega brainstorm is still fresh in my mind. No experience. No idea. Since then I've produced a few different, and less mind boggling bags to house my man's lunches, but never with a pattern.

Then Virginia kindly sent me an invite to join the Gingercake holiday sewing series, and it was high time to freshen up the lunch bag selection!

 

I know what you're thinking....."how is he going to be able to tell which bag is his in the communal fridge!" I think he'll manage. Though it IS less striking than the one I embroidered a "portrait" of his face on. (if you read to the end I might show it to you)

Virginia, who creates the goods in the gingercake shop, offered to let me sew up one of her patterns, and having already thought it was time for a new lunch bag to send the man packing with, I was happy to find this! The love your lunch box pattern was one of a few different lunch toting vessels offered in her shop. 

I'm also hoping to sew one of her traveling changing pads because it seems like it's time to own one now that I'm on my third baby and all. Plus I loved the one Gail made a while ago, and it's been filed away in my head.

Virginia did a great job putting her pattern together. Great instructions, photos, and tips. I, Blunder the magnificent, had no problems the whole way through. And now I finally know the "right" way to put one of these together. Hey, the ones I concocted in my head worked! They were just a little less....polished. 

I used a yellow canvas, and had other plans for how this was going to look, but as soon as I cut out the canvas pieces for the body I just saw a minifig head. Couldn't shake it, so I just changed plans and got out the freezer paper. The sides of the bag are essex yarn dyed linen in black, which always seems to photograph as blue. Love this stuff! It goes with everything. The pattern also calls for insulbrite batting, but as I had none and Tim always puts his lunch in the fridge at work anyway, I went with fleece. 

It's hard to tell in the shots, but there are side pockets on this too, which is great because I always like to put a note in his lunch and I prefer a pocket to just throwing it in with everything else. 

How could I resist making a lego closure? In place of velcro (which I'm out of) I dug around in the lego bin and glued some pieces down with e6000. They seem pretty securely stuck on, but in the event that one comes off I'll just drill small holes through them and stitch them on too.  Just figured I'd half ass it the first time and see if it worked. 

You can see in the below photo how it clicks shut. Just another ridiculous lunch bag from Casa Faul!

Now do you want a peek of my first lunch bag creation?.....

 

Constructed of some lightweight canvas from the remnant bin at Joann's, the only section of the store I could bring myself to shop from for a while, and pieces of an old button down shirt of Tim's. My brain overheated just figuring out how to get this thing together, and you don't even want to see the up close details. It's lying in tatters in a kitchen drawer these days because I still think it's so hilarious to give up. 

And the embroidery? Don't even try to fool yourself into thinking I had an idea of what I was doing. Pure, clueless sewing right there. Also, you can see the salon chair in my kitchen in the background from when I was in school at Paul Mitchell and practicing on willing subjects in my house. Good times. Still picking hair out of crevices in there. Oddly, my supply table is right where my sewing machine is now!

And now, as promised// a giveaway! 

Virginia generously offered to let me give away a copy of the Love Your Lunch Box pattern to one of my friends. 

Just enter the rafflecopter below and leave me a comment telling me what you were most jealous of in other kid's lunches when you were young.

Thanks Virginia for inviting me to join your series!

a Rafflecopter giveaway