SYMBOLIC LOVE, I'M DAFT!

While I couldn't sleep last night I spent the time sewing a PE bag for Alice. I've been planning to do this since September. I've been accumulating the necessary bits for a while. I actually made a bag at the end of last week but it was the wrong shape, so over the weekend I cut out more fabric.

It's in her uniform colour, the second version is a better proportion, this time the lower part is needle cord and not cotton and the gingham part has a frill above the drawstring section, much better! I've turned it into a backpack style bag by adding extra tabs at the bottom. The letter were from E*bay (try searching for iron on letters).

The daft thing is that Alice doesn't actually need a PE bag yet - though I do send in a bag with spare clothes in, but it's the symbolic nature of this bag that's important.

As an adult I learnt that better communication would have brought benefits through my teenage years - as illustrated by several drawstring bags. When I went away to boarding school we had a long list of necessary items, including 2 drawstring bags, 1 smaller one for laundry and a larger one for our extensive PE kit. My bags came from the school outfitter - we assumed that everyone had the same, most people had the same type of bag as I did - nasty, dark, thin, denim with a black string and when the bags were full the string dug into my hands, boring, slightly unpleasant, utilitarian bags. But a friend had a different bag, homemade and lovely - a pale bag with a washing line appliqued across it and 'Laundry' embroidered underneath, with a cotton, co-ordinating, thick drawstring, so much nicer. Her Mum had made it for her. I didn't want her bag, but I would have loved my Mum to have made something similar. I didn't share this with Mum until several years after I left school and of course she would have been delighted to have made me a special bag, I'd just never told her! So part of my 'mothering' has to be making my daughter a special bag, which she will probably never value in the same way as me - she'll probably aspire to be like everyone else and have a 'normal' mass produced one!!