Tale of a Pencil Case

Salford 18th March 2018

Anyone who’s read the “First Day at School” piece on here, will know how in my first year at High school – i ended up in Needlework for form.

Well, during the school week that year – as well as your regular stuff from English and Maths, Geography, History and all….we had craft lessons and this took us from Woodwork to Pottery.

But before we could get into the really messy stuff.  We had to do the basics

and this meant making a pencil case from scratch

They were all standard size – and made from one standard tartan fabric,

the inner pocket – we could choose a colour from a selection and attached it to the tartan before creating the cases over all shape

I still have memories of lads in their craft aprons yelling out after being stabbed by a stray pin.   For me, my Achilles heel was getting the thread in the needle

Once attached, we were shown how to operate the sewing machine

As i put my foot to the pedal – i watched as the fabric slowly formed into the case

Then the decorations and fixings went on – biased binding, riff-raff braid in all colours and velcro and pop-studs

It took a few sessions to master, but when i finished i’d created something i’d be proud to take into the rest of class with