I remembered someone posting about pencil bags that they had made for teacher gifts, and my brain filed that away. Then I remembered a post about using Chain stitch embroidery, and somehow my brain combined the two and I had the idea to make hand embroidered pencil bags.
I went to the magical "google" and started with looking for quotes about teachers. I found one I loved,
Next, I grabbed some fabric from my stash and found a cotton duck in natural. Perfect and durable for the outside, and then went to the store and got two different fat quarters for the two different teachers I needed to sew for.
I cut rectangles of 10.5" by 4.5" in the cotton duck and the lining fabric. I wrote the quote in pencil and then chain stitched on top in a color to match the lining. Once done, I ironed the top done 1/4" and then sewed the lining and top to the zipper.
Once I was done with that, I unzipped it and turned it inside out. I then sewed about the edges leaving a 2 inch opening. I pulled it right side out and stitched the opening closed.
They were not perfect, given that I finished the embroidery the night before the last day of classes, and had to sew 2 of them together in one night!
Here is the one for my daughter's teacher:
This is the front
This was the back
And this was the lining and fun zipper color!!
