Lego® Sacks -- a fun and practical gift for kids

I'm posting these here on my Christmas blog for a couple of reasons:
1) They are a great and very easy handmade gift for  kids;
2) I plan on making these for my Nevada grandkids for Christmas and they will be much less likely to see them here than on my regular blog, which they occasionally look at.

So -- I had seen this Lego Sack tutorial some time ago and put it on my list to make for the kids.  I have several Lego-loving grandchildren, and this would make a useful gift for them. 

Very simply, it's a large lined fabric circle which the kids can use as a playing surface for Legos or, actually, any toy with a multitude of small pieces.

Opened up as playing surface

Then, when they are done playing for the day, they simply gather up the drawstrings and voila! the pieces are all contained within one neat sack, which can then be hung from a peg or hook, a doorknob or even a bedpost.

Closed up for storage

I made this orange one for one of my grandsons, and his brother admired it so much that he wanted one for his birthday, too.  So I made his in the same print, only a teal color.  I failed to get pictures of that one.

I thought this sort of geometric print would look nice for Legos.  I found it at a Walmart that still carries fabric.  It was on clearance -- between $1 and $2 a yard, I forget which.  I bought it in orange, teal, and yellow.  I can't remember if there were other colors or not, but there may have been.  I will find out, though, as I need to go back and get more fabric for making more sacks for Christmas gifts.

For the lining, I lined the first one with part of an old sheet, and that worked fine.  For the second one, I lined it with a sturdier fabric -- think it may have been osnaburg -- which I had originally bought for lining tote bags.  I'll plan to use that for the remaining 3 or 4 Lego sacks, since I have plenty of it.

These go together almost unbelievably fast.  The hardest part, literally, is measuring and cutting the circle.  I used a 1-yard square to cut the circle from, and panicked at first because I thought it was going to be too small.  But it was just fine.  Actually, if you are using just regular fabric, you won't be able to cut anything larger than a 45-inch square anyway.  And you would have to purchase more than a yard to do that.  So for me, I think I'll continue using the 36-inch square.

For the drawstrings, I used wide ribbon.  Wide bias tape would work well too, and so would rope or a thick cord.  The instructions call for making one's own bias tape but I didn't have time or interest in doing that.

Hope this info is helpful to someone.  These certainly have been a hit with my grandkids so far!