Laundry Bags

I was recently given Martha Stewart's "Encyclopedia of Sewing" book and my first project out of it ended up being laundry bags for each of the four of us.

I personalized the boys' and left mine and Brett's bare. With all the traveling we'll be doing in the near future, I thought it would be nice to have some laundry bags that we could haul around with us.

They ended up being more work than I thought, but they were still pretty simple and I'm really happy with how they turned out. I used a cotton ticking for the outside, and a bleached muslin for the lining. I used left-over fabric to make the straps, but I think if I were to do this again, I wouldn't make my own, but use twill tape instead. It would have made these go a lot quicker. For the pictures and lettering, I used the freezer-paper-stencil method and then used puff paint for the lines on the balls. It was so easy that I've been looking for things around the house that I could stencil. :-)

I've marked many other things in the book that I'd like to try. Hopefully I can start a new sewing project soon. After looking through the book, I have started watching "The Martha Stewart Show" and there have been a few projects on there that I would like to try as well. I'm thinking that homemade sidewalk chalk might be next on the list. I'll let you know how it turns out!