Train bag (a pain in my caboose)

I stayed in last night in an attempt to get a Christmas gift for my nephew done.  The back story is here, but the abridged version is the boy has enough toy trains to fill a tub. 

or swimming pool. 

or any other arbitrary 'large' object. 

He brings them with him everywhere, and they inevetably end up under someone's feet. 

Bad news for the trains, and bad news for the feet.

Since we are gifitng on a budget this year - I pulled out my stash of train fabric and went to work.

I got about 1/2 way done (hopefully that was the hard half since it involved a zipper, some swear words and a seem ripper.)

My brain fizzled out around 10:00pm .

I had to walk away and complete some flickr/blog therapy at about 10:30pm.

Today is a new day, however. 

I've had my coffee and ready for the final face off with Thomas and Friends...

 ______________________________________________

Edit: 12/17/11 6:00PM  

I win ... I WIN!!

I am happy to say it's all done!

..and it's my first successful zipper install!  

The artsy fartsy shot of the zipper.

Just don't look too close - it's a bit, special.

Fabric: Assorted Thomas the Tank Character Fabric
Pattern: Tutorial by Anna from Noodleheads

No More Trippin' Over Trains

I love my nephew.

I love how he and his grandpa (my dad) have bonded over trains.

I most definitely do not love tripping over his fleet of Thomas the Tank Engine trains when he visits.

It's kind of adorable watching him try to get in the door with 7 trains clenched in his little hands.

, at the end of the day, I didn't pay $20 on a pedicure just to chip it on Thomas....mmmkay?

Enter these beauties

 
They may not look like much right now.. but once I'm done with them  my nephew will have his very own drawstring bag to carry his beloved trains in.

Something like this perhaps?

{Photo Source}

And there just coincidentally *cough cough* happens to be a tutorial for that very bag on Mamaurchin's Site!

Okay, so it's not really a coincidence at all. It's me taking my college professor's advice to heart-
 "Don't reinvent the wheel! Use the resources you have, then adapt."
Thanks Dr. C, I'll keep sticking to that advice!


Inventing the wheel or not, I am sure of this:

 More trains for nephew + less tripping for me = win win!