I did it! The nests are done! Not before the original Christmas deadline, of course, but I blame the general chaos of Christmas and my own complete hubris for that. A week late is actually not bad for me.

To get you up to speed, I decided to craft some “nests” for the kids. You can read all about it here and here. The idea was to make a basic cinch-able bag for each of them to put all of their miscellaneous toys in. I wanted to make the bags look like nests because they often play a game where they make cozy nests for their toys out of blankets. My hope is that they will be fooled into actually putting their toys away. You may laugh now.

Here’s the orignal idea:

I had to modify it to this when I realized the above design would not cinch closed and that kids don’t want appliqués of branches and leaves on their bags, they want monsters and sparkly butterfly buttons:

Matthew’s mom brought her sewing machine down from Boston for the holidays, and after a quick tutorial I set to work.

Her machine is especially awesome because it threads the needle for you, and plays a little chime for you when it starts up, like a computer. For inexplicable reasons, this makes me very happy.

Alden and Kato occasionally stepped in to help. One of their jobs was to take the pins I had removed and put them back in the pincushion.

The other of their jobs was to hold as still as possible and not continually try to spin the office chair we were sitting in around. They were both fired for not fulfilling half of their prescribed duties.

I discovered that pinning on trim is super exciting, especially when you pin it all on upside-down first, and then do it all over again “just for fun.”

I also discovered that in trying to keep pom-poms away from the needle, one should not use one’s most used finger (in my case, left index finger).

My finger got pinched between the screw that holds the needle in and the bottom of the body of the sewing machine. I have a wicked blood blister that is now giving my finger a headache.

NONETHELESS.

The nests are done!

Here they are at their most nest-like, with the top half tucked down inside and the fringe sticking up:

And here they are at their most bucket-like, with the top half stretched up and not cinched:

And here you can see Kato’s cinched closed, and Alden’s left open:

Kato was quite reasonable in his requests for trim – a simple brown fringe and some lace:

Alden, on the other hand, wanted four different kinds of fringe – green lace, white lace, pom-poms and a feather boa. Though I accommodated her, I place the blame of my injured finger entirely on her and her G.D. pom-poms.

I had originally planned to save these until tonight – as New Year’s presents. But when I went to look for them to take these photos, I found one in the middle of the living room floor, in perhaps the most appropriate manner a nest bag has ever been used:

Alden had literally put a bunch of small stuffed animals in the nest and put a duck on top of them. It could not have been more perfect.

I found Kato’s nest bag nearby on the cabinet.

Kato had been unaware that his nest bag had already been put into action. He opened it up and saw books inside.

Furious at the misappropriation, he removed all the books and scolded Alden, saying that it was his nest for his toys.

I know I probably should have told him to be nice and that he needs to share with his sister, but I was secretly so pleased that he cared that I let him off the hook this time.

I suppose it’s a slippery slope. Soon enough, he’ll be demanding his own room.