Toy sacks!

I was going to title this "More toy sacks" but then I discovered that I apparently never blogged about the previous iterations I've made.  I blogged once two years ago about starting my first set, but I never apparently showed pictures of the final versions!  How remiss of me!  Anyway, I found a tutorial awhile ago for Peek-a-Boo Toy Sacks.  The idea is that you have a sack for storing toys, one that children can easily use, and it has a vinyl window so you can see what's inside without dumping out all the toys first.  Genius!

Anyway, I had made a few of these for the Things for storing their toys, and I'd even given one or two away.  That was about it, until I was hit last year by the realization that there were going to be a LOT of birthday parties in Thing 2's future.  So I had started brainstorming fun gifts that I could sew for Thing 2 to give.  I did a few Art on the Go kits, and I made a couple of superhero capes.  And then I suddenly remembered the Peek-a-Boo Toy Sacks.  It seemed like a good idea to give one with a few cars inside, so I made one from Matchbox fabric (in the stash for a long time) and had Thing 2 pick out 6 Hot Wheels cars (the birthday boy was turning 6).  Well, that was a hit with his mom!  She wrote an addendum to his thank-you note to specifically say how great the bag was and how cool it was that I'd made it.  And, you know, that's about all the encouragement I needed!  I think I had made up 4 or 5 in the spring - I gave one of each print to Thing 2 for his toys (which definitely need help!) and then used the others as gifts.  

Now he's been invited to the first birthday party of the new school year, and when I asked the mom what the birthday boy liked, she said race cars and anything NASCAR.  Which reminded me that I had some NASCAR fabric in the stash once upon a time....I couldn't remember if it was a lot or down to scraps, but I went hunting and found probably two yards in there.  So I promptly cut out four bags - I used leftover red cotton to line two and muslin to line the other two.  The red bags got red for casing and ties, but I used black cotton scraps for the muslin bags.  One for this weekend's party, one for Thing 2, and two for stash!  I think I'll be getting some more broadcloth to make some more up soon....