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A few weeks ago my toddler got ahold of our classroom American flag, and of course, broke it. I had been planning to make my 1st grader a nifty tin whistle case anyway, and then I had the bright idea: make the flag into the whistle case! I held the flag up to the whistle, and it was the perfect size fabric 🙂
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I realized that the flag fabric alone wouldn’t be sturdy enough to make a proper case. Since my sewing skills leave much to be desired, I went for the most basic method: I got a piece of felt from the craft store, which happened to be almost exactly the same size as the flag – yay!
I pinned the flag onto the felt, then sewed the two pieces of fabric together freehand (honestly, I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of getting my sewing machine out). I then cut the one long side of the fabric that I had left unpinned, so that it lined up with the flag.
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Once that was done, I literally just placed the whistle in the rectangle so that the length of the whistle and the length of the fabric almost perfectly lined up. I then folded the fabric over it, to create a pocket for the whistle to slip into. Then, with the whistle still inserted, I rolled the fabric up and pinned down the previously-sewn seam where the fabric ended. I freehand-stitched the seam to the rolled up fabric, and when I got to the bottom of the case, I simply sewed the end shut.
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Whala! A cute tin whistle case for about $1.50 – and patriotic too!