All the small things

Over the past couple months I’ve been working on a bunch of small items, using up stray fabric here and there.

Probably the most fun sewing project of this batch was a drawstring bag with lining (pattern from The Spruce Crafts). I made this small bag as a replacement for the not-very-cute mesh bag that came with my reusable makeup remover pads, and used roughly the dimensions of that mesh bag to guide this project. I think it looks maybe 2 inches too long, but it works for the job at hand. I bought the fabric a few years ago in Nippori, Tokyo’s fabric district, and am fiiiinally getting around to using it.

I think what made this project so fun was working on the drawstring casing and lining. When you’re in the midst of it, the layers don’t seem like much. All of a sudden things sort of magically fall into place, as fabric is turned out the right way.

The last time I made a drawstring bag was in middle school home ec class, when everyone had to make a rather large drawstring bag: think of the type of large sack you might take on a sleepover. Those had much chunkier drawstrings! And no lining to speak of.

This fabric also made an appearance in a batch of masks:

The grey illustrated-house fabric is also from a small cut of fabric purchased in Nippori. And I swear, this is the last batch of masks I’m making in this pandemic—I’m sick of them!

Also due to the pandemic, 2020 was the first year I have not gone home to my parents’ for Christmas. Which also means it’s the first year I bothered to get my own tree! We bought a small but real pine tree from the grocery store, and I thought it might be nice to make some pine sachets with the dried-out needles.

I cut and sewed enough of this plaid flannel fabric to make 6 sachets, but it ended up taking forever to get needles off the tree. So the remaining four sachets became a set of holiday coasters instead:

And that’s it for this batch of tiny projects!