Homemade Travel Sewing Kit

It begins! I actually got the first real packing done last night. I have a box filled with winter blankets and flannel sheets, ready to be stored, and packed a suitcase with all my winter clothes and shoes (well, most of them. I know there are still some hats and scarves around somewhere, I'm just not sure where). It feels nice to make a small dent in the work, in spite of Matt's belief that it should all be done in the last week or so :)

Also in preparation for the trip, last week I put together a travel sewing kit to take along. We anticipate a fair amount of farm work, which in turn means I anticipate lots of tears and loose buttons and patching. Since we are certainly trying to get by on a very small amount of belongings for our trip to the southern hemisphere, I hope to be able to make the clothes that we take last us the whole time, even our work clothes.

My little sewing kit consists of 10 straight pins and three sewing needles of various sizes and strengths, pinned through a small piece of flannel, which is wrapped around a bit of cardboard to keep everything in place and prevent fingers from being poked. Also included are a number of safety pins, my seam ripper, Matt's grandmother's sewing scissors, small spools of white, black, and gray thread, a small skein of wool for darning socks, a thimble, and a little ziploc bag containing a darning needle and a small assortment of buttons.

It all packs nicely into the mesh bag that my multitowel came in (incidentally, this is a product which I would recommend to anyone, regardless of whether or not you are traveling), which keeps everything together and compact. It can actually be rolled into a package about the size of a standard glasses case.

The countdown is really beginning- we arrive in Auckland in less than four weeks!