Monthly challenge for K4BN...

The September Challenge of K4BN is on this weekend and despite heaps of sewing to do for our parish fair in 2 weeks, I put my name down to make something :-/.  The project this challenge is to make items that would be suitable for organisations that help the needy, to give out as Christmas gifts to their clients. A number of these organisations have already contacted Karen enquiring about the possibility that K4BN would be able to help provide small items etc. So... being me, I decided to think 'outside the square'. For quite a while I've thought about making some 'storybook' bags for my great nieces and nephews of whom I have more than a few :-)...but I still haven't got past the thinking stage. Oh I've bought  suitable picture books and also fabrics to make the bags plus other little items that suit the chosen books, but I haven't actually made anything up ...until now.

Original plan was to knit a little beanie for the picture book 'Sebastian lives in a hat' about a wombat who snuggles in a knitted beanie as his bed. I had found some fabric with Aussie animals on which I planned to fussy cut the wombats out and applique them to plain fabric to make the bag. As well as the beanie to pop into the bag, I have some little 6inch stuffed wombat toys to add as well. Sounded good I thought...until I found that the 2 copies of the book weren't stored where I thought they should be....
So I could spend time looking in other hidey holes for the missing book or go to Plan B. I chose the latter and selected another book from my 'pile', which were all stored where I expected them to be. So I made a storybook bag for 'My Yellow Blanky' about a little boy who loves his yellow blanky which is full of comforting smells (such as the smell of his dog) until his mum washes it! Sweet story, sweet dog...so this is what I did....

So here's the book that I finally chose in Plan B

Then I made a 'yellow blanky' out of some fleecy fabric that a friend had given me....

Then in the one box of school 'stuff' that I still have, I found this little stuffed dog toy...

I made the drawstring bag out of the fabric that I 'lined' the blanky with. 

And one more photo...a close up of the floppy dog :-)
So I will hand this in at the next Knit and Natter. I like to think that a child somewhere in Queensland will enjoy hearing the story, while cuddling up with the yellow blanky and the floppy puppy. As you can guess, I'm passionate about children reading and being read to.

Regular readers will know that K4BN entered a competition run by Sunsuper, hoping to win $5000. I also mentioned that our nearest rivals in the comp 'got a bit nasty' in the final days. When voting closed on Friday at 5pm, we had 2428 votes to 2478, so we are in second place. However the winner will not be announced until Wednesday, as Sunsuper staff will check through all the voting to check if there was any fraudulent behaviour by entrants.
Now we may have been in second place but we are winners too...no money for us but a wonderful feeling knowing that so many people worked hard to help us get votes, spreading out to an unbelievable number of networks.  So many of my friends and family worked so hard for us and some of my former pupils were brilliant at drumming up more votes, but that's only 'my network'...multiply that by the members of K4BN who have access to the internet and it's mind boggling. The group also got a lot of publicity, some new members and many offers of donations...so yep! We are winners too!!! We have now set up a Facebook page and you don't have to be an Aussie to 'like us' on that page :-) here.