Creating a story sack

In my last post I mentioned that I had recently made a story sack.  I have made a few of these in the past and shared some of them on here.  When my children were small they loved to bring these home from the library Alice, in particular, was always really disappointed that we could only borrow one at a time.  

A story sack is such a clever way of getting more out of a book than just reading.  Now that Alice is older I can see why these sacks were so appealing to her,  she has really struggled with learning to read, letters and words were a mystery to her for a long time.  Story sacks are a bag of books, props and sometimes a game on a theme, a thread from the main book in the sack.  The props are toys that enhance the main book.  

In this story sack is just one book, I didn't have time to find a second one, it is part of a series that my children loved when they were smaller, and a few props that Alice and I made.  Percy the Park Keeper looks after a park and spends lots of his time with his friends the animals who live in the park.  Percy and the animals are often to be found having fun together.  In this story they are playing hide and seek, one of the animals choses a hiding place that has unexpected results.

Percy and his animal friends are all needle felted.  Alice made Percy, and between us we made the other animals.  I made a small bag to keep them all in.

I am lucky enough to have an independent bookshop in my local town.  Some of the story sacks I have made have been based on a particular book, more usually I browse through the children's books to find a story that lends itself to be made into a sack.  I love this type of project and am glad that my nephew loves his first story sack, as I am sure that I will be making him more in the future. 

If you go down to my woods today........

......be sure to wear your wellies and waterproofs, you might meet some bears but they are unlikely to be having a picnic its rather soggy round here.  As you wander through the wood you would be forgiven for being confused about what season we are in (not half as confused as those further south than me tho').  The temperatures of late have been more Spring like, they have cooled now perhaps Winter is on its way finally?  I do hope the Spring bulbs that have started to sprout will not be die off.   The world is definitely warming up there is not disputing that, but there is much disagreement as to why that is happening, I cannot believe that us humans are not having some impact.

The warmth of the season much be having an effect on hibernating animals who do so when the temperatures door there surely can't be enough food for them to survive a warmer winter awake.  I heard last month that Polar Bears, were having to walk much further to find food making them hungrier, there is a concern that this will impact the seal population.  Polar Bears don't hibernate and neither do those that go for walks in woods whilst their breakfast is cooling.  We all know that Bears don't eat porridge or live in houses for that matter but in fairy stories anything is possible right?

I made a storysack back in May, a birthday present for my twin nephews they loved it so much my sister in law requested another for Christmas.  She wants to introduce some of the fairy tales to them so asked if I could use one as the basis, can you guess which one I chose?  For those that have never come across story sacks they are a bag of books, props and sometimes a game on a theme, a thread from the main book in the sack.  The props are toys that enhance the main book.

The latest sack is Goldilocks and the Three Bears, did you guess right?  There are hundreds of versions of this story around I chose Gerda Muller's version, I love her illustrations and her take on this well known tale.  She has changed the ending, the Bears are still cross with Goldilocks not for what she has done, but rather not done.  She entered their house without being invited in, she hasn't minded her manners, they offer her to join them for a bowl of porridge as she runs away!

I have made three bears Daddy, Mummy and Baby and a Goldilocks who is a little on the small side but I don't think that matters when you are three.  It was difficult to work out the finished size from the pattern, I sized it up a bit but it could have done with increasing a bit more.  I managed to make her from bits and pieces in my stash.  She and the Bears are stuffed with sheep's wool from a fleece I was given by a friend, I had to wash it first!

As I was sewing and cutting the various pieces I pondered the cost of making these sacks and other presents I gift.  I have often been told I should make things to sell, there are two reasons I don't, it would lose its appeal to me, 'having' to do it and more importantly would be the costing the items and whether I would ever sell them.  I have been talking about this with a friend recently she opened an etsy shop recently and has found pricing the items to ensure she can make a living.  I used plenty of small pieces of material from my stash, the stuffing was free, the few pieces (including the books) I bought came to about £20, the biggest 'cost' was my time.  The bears took an hour to cut out and and hour and half to sew up and stuff for each one, Goldilocks was about the same.  Her clothing and hair took three hours and the bag an hour that is a total of 14 hours of work at the current UK minimum wage that would be £93.20 for my time, I would be charging over £100 for this story sack.

There was a second book, Please Mr Panda, in the sack a story book about manners that I thought tied in with the main book and with a bear covered bag to keep it all a Goldilocks and the Three Bears Storysack.  I love making these sacks and I am sure I will make my nephews another for their birthday in May, might have to get thinking about that one soon!

Joining Nicole

Snore

"All was quiet on the farm"*

For the past few weeks I have been monopolising one of the small tables in our living room, much to the disgust of my family especially as on some days I spread out onto the sofa too.  The monopoly has been caused by some small knitted creations which I was picking up and working on each time I had a few spare minutes.  Knitting rows and then occasionally unpicking them as some of the creations had no pattern to work from.

"Cat was asleep, Dog was asleep, Cow was asleep"

How I would love to have my own dedicated crafting space, where I could leave my works in progress out and return to them in the knowledge that they will not have been strewn around the place.  If I am not monopolising the table then it is the back of a chair in the same room which sometimes has sewing in progress draped over the back of it, it has the perfect back for draping.  Once I have gone to the effort of ironing and cutting out material I don't want to fold it up and put it away, I will forget about it then and have to re-iron it, so it sits as a reminder that it needs attention and often gets knocked on the floor.

"Sheep was asleep. Pig was asleep, and so were all the Piglets"

Those small creations came about as a result of a conversation I had with my sister in law, some time ago, about presents.  She and my brother have four children all born in a four week period, my own daughter has a birthday during that time too, if I am to get presents sorted for them all in time I have to start early!  With two older siblings and mum being a childminder it is really hard to know what to give the youngest two (twins) as they have so many things in their house already.  Somehow that conversation got onto story sacks.

It was all so peaceful - till.... snore! and Cat woke up.  Cow woke up.

I had just the book in mind, one that I had long thought about turning into such a project.  One of my own children's favourite books when they were younger, Snore by Michael Rosen.  A very simple story of a snoring dog who has woken all the other animals on the farm, they would like to get back to sleep if they can just stop him snoring..........

"Sheep woke up. Pig woke up, and so did all the Piglets"

I needed a dog, a cat, a cow, a sheep, a pig, some piglets and a rooster.  I thought about sewing them with felt but they needed to be robust and I wasn't sure I could achieve that.  My twin nephews will be two next month and, as a childminder, mum wants to use it with her minded children when they have outgrown it.  It needed to last, I thought knitting them would make the animals stronger.  I had patterns for most of the animals some of which I had made before, the others I had to make up with varying amounts of success.

I have whipped up a bag for the animals, to keep them all together, and another bag to store everything in.  I have added a second book to this sack, a story written by a local author about bedtime.  I hope it gets lots of use!

Oh and the rooster?  He was my favourite to make, he, naturally, wakes the dog up!

Now my family can have the table back, until the next project that is............

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*All text in italics is taken from the book, Snore by Michael Rosen

Rainbows

I have long been fascinated by creativity and how to define it.  When I first started to read blogs I was left feeling woefully inadequate by the amazing things that I was reading about.  Things that I would have never thought of doing or making, and I have now come to realise that I never will.  Not so long ago I posted about my realisation that creativity is so much more that just producing amazing objects to share on your blog.  It encompasses so many areas of our lives and what it means to each of us is completely different.  What is most important though is that we make room for it in our lives, in whatever form it needs to take for us as individuals, and we own it.

I am fond of making the presents that I gift.  I recently made some fabric baskets for a friend, the pattern came from a book that I have on my shelves.  She asked to look at the book as she wanted to make some herself to give as gifts.  When she saw the pages in the book she looked at me and said, I would never have thought have making them at all looking at those pictures.  It was the perfect compliment to me.  But when you really look at all the things that people make and share pictures of, are they often as not fairly similar.  That is not to say that we are dull, boring and repetitive, far from it, but that as we all view the potential for something differently we make it slightly different or add our own twist.  But if it is something that we are new to and need to follow some instructions to gain confidence isn't it great that someone has been there before and made them up for you?

Last year I made a story sack for a friends child.  I actually made this for her eldest child, but it has become a favourite of her youngest.  Sadly the wee owls have not proved themselves to be sturdy enough and most of the babies have missing wings.  I wanted to make another story sack, with sturdier contents this time, but I was struggling with inspiration.  I often see projects which I would really love to make, this is itself is not a good enough reason for me to do so.  I have to need it or be able to gift it.  When I saw this delightful gnome I knew that it would be the perfect addition, it was sturdy and adorable.  But I needed to work out how it would make its way into a story sack.  I mulled it over for some time..............gnome stories? colour stories? rainbows!

A rainbow of gnomes, in a rainbow bag, with a delightful story about the colours of a rainbow.  I just hope that book doesn't get destroyed this time.........

So I took two patterns created by others put them together and made something out of them, inspired by a blogger showing me what she had made.  What I created was totally different, yet the same, I am not more or less creative, just given my own twist to an idea.

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Pattern for gnomes is a combination of here and here

Tutorial for bag is here

Owls

I try and make most of the presents that we gift, especially to children.  There is something special about the process of thinking about and making the right present, even if it is something you make time and again there are little tweaks you can make to individualise it to the recipient.  I was given a lovely book for my birthday last year which has inspired us to make a few bits and pieces for our seasonal table.  The back section of the book is given over to stories and whilst I wasn't inspired to make any suggested by the book I started to think of stories that I knew that would lend themselves to be being added to in this way to make a small storysack.

One of my all time favourite stories for young children is Owl Babies by Martin Waddell, I have reviewed it here.  I bought a copy for my eldest when he was very young and have been reading it to him and then to my youngest ever since.  There are some books that I find tedious to read time and time again, but not this one.  The text also lends itself to being read by those learning to read, it is slightly repetitive and the words are simple.  It will be a sad day for me when my children no longer want to hear this charming story.  It has four characters mother owl and her three babies, this book is perfect for a story sack.

I used little peg dolls to make the Owls, a 6cm for the Mother Owl and 4cm for the babies both rounded in shape.  I bought my peg dolls from here.  I painted them with opaque paints, non toxic in case they are put into little mouths.  The wings and the head/beak on Mother Owl are small pieces of wool felt, glued in place.

The little bag, to keep all the pieces together, has owls on it too, of course! I made the bag in a simple construction with a drawstring top.  If you cut a piece of material to the size you need.  Turn the side edges, at the tops, in by a cm for about 5cm, turn the top edges over by about 1/2cm and pin, now turn the top edge over to create a tube for your cord, I turned over 2 1/2cm.  Pin and sew a seam on both ends of your fabric.  As close to this tube as you can cut the fabric so that the sides will sit flat, pin and sew the side seams.  Iron the seam and turn the right side out.  Cut your cord into two, I had a metre for this bag which is a little on the short side, and thread each piece through both tubes and knot on each side.  To close the bag pull on the knots to draw the top together.

An Owl Babies Storysack........

.........now I just need to finish another present for his sibling, their birthdays are a day apart!

Joining in with Nicole for a sharing of making and creating, pop over to see what others have been up to.....