Do you work with children, or have children in your life? Sometimes it is difficult for them (and us) to name our feelings.
Teaching children about emotions, what they feel like, how our face and attitude can change when we are experiencing them, and how to name our emotions, is an important part of teaching Emotional Wellness to young children!
As an Early Childhood Educator, I helped build and grow a Family Resource Center in our community. Our mission is to support and empower caregivers by giving them the tools they need to give the children in their care the best possible start. Teaching Emotional Wellness is an important part of this and so I designed this fun, Emotions Raindrop Pattern to meet this need.
The raindrops are made with a beautiful rainbow palette of Riley Blake Designs Confetti Cottons. They are happy, and sad, scared and surprised. There is even a sleepy raindrop!
Of course, these raindrops need a special place to keep them all together and safe. I saw that Cindy Cloward of Riley Blake Designs has this wonderful video tutorial for a Clear View Tote and knew this was the perfect way to keep these cuties safe!
I decided to use a Kristy of Quiet Play's Dream Fabric. All the colors, rainbow prints and colorful raindrops in this fabric collection are just PERFECT for this bag! Just look at the cloud prints with colored raindrops! I love the pops of rainbows and tone on tone prints too!
The prints are all so much fun I wanted to include many of them in this project bag, so I decided to use a simple tube method called bargello to achieve a fun patchwork for this bag! Bargello is a strip piecing technique that is wonderful for even beginner sewists! It gives the illusion of movement in the piecing in a efficient (and slightly magical) way. What a fun and wonderful way to add some happy, rain storming fun to this project bag. Check out the easy tutorial I have included in this blog post.
Details are always so much fun and an exciting way to personalize handmade items. I used one of the Emotion Raindrops for the zipper pull! I just love how happy it turned out!
Bargello Piecing Tutorial:
Make two - 12 1/2" pieced Bargello squares for use in the Clear-View Tote Tutorial.
1. Using at least 6 different fabrics from RBD Dream fabric collection, cut 6 - 2 1/2" x WOF strips.
2. Layout strips in the color order you would like and sew the strips together using your 1/4" seam allowance. Press all the seams in the same direction.
3. Next make a tube by sewing the first and sixth strip together. Press this seam in the same direction as the other seams are going.
4. Lay out the tube on your cutting mat and using your rotary cutter and ruler, cut out 12 - 2 1/2" tube strips.
5. For this next step, your seam ripper is your friend!!!... Open up the seam between the first and 6th seam - this is strip one. On the next tube, open the seam between the first and 2nd seam - this is strip two. Continue in this way until you have 6 strips opened up and laid out.
6. Pin the strips together matching all the intersecting seams and sew at 1/4" seam allowance. Press the seam open to reduce bulk. Repeat this process until all 6 strips are sewn together.
7. Trim this pieced square to 12 1/2" square. Make 2. Use these squares in place of the flat fabrics in Cindy's Clear View Tote video tutorial.
Pattern:
Fabric:
Clear-View Tote Tutorial:
