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Project of the Month: How to make a Pencil Roll

This month to help get ready for the new school term we’ve done a how to make your own Pencil Roll! Could also be used for paint brushes or even make up brushes!

You will need:

Materials:
X2 Different fabrics 28cm x 39cm
60cm 15mm wide Satin Ribbon

Tools and Equipment:
Sewing Machine, Thread, Pins, Needle, Fabric Scissors, Ruler, Pen / Tailors Chalk,
Iron and Ironing board, Pinking Shears, a mug / something with a curve to draw round

Let’s get Making!

Decide which of your fabrics will be the inner and which will be the outer. For our roll the white animal fabric is the outer and the purple raindrops is the inner. From both of the fabrics cut the following: 28cm x 13cm. 28cm x 26cm (you’ll notice this fits into a fat quarter perfectly so you could actually make the roll out of just one fat quarter is you didn’t want the contrasting fabrics!
Next just with the larger piece of both fabrics grab your mug and butter it up to the top corners, draw around and then cut to give you a nice smooth curve!

Little Hack
Fabric cut out and ready to go!

Take the two smaller pieces right sides together and stitch along the top (1cm seam allowance for this project) Open out and press and then fold so that wrong sides are facing and press the seam down. This will make up the front pockets.

Pocket piece pressed

Take your pocket piece and lay it on top of the larger inner piece of fabric so that bottom corners and lined up. Now grab your pins and a rular, you can use the pins to mark out where you will be stitching to make the multiple pouches or a washable pen / tailors chalk if you prefer. Mark out the pins 3.5cm apart from each – APART from the ones on the other edge, they will need to be 4.5 cm from the edge to allow for seam allowance for when assembling. This perfectly fit 3 pencils per pouch, feel free to change it round to be either smaller or larger depends how many you’d like to fit if each section!

Align your pins for where / how big you’d like your pockets to be

Stitch straight lines down attaching the pouch to the inner piece of fabric. Snip off the loose threads and grab out remaining outer piece of fabric face down (so right sides together) sandwich together and pin around the edge

Sandwich together your pieces, right sides facing

Leave a gap of roughly 7cm along the edge (in between the curves) and sitch around the edge. Snip off the corners, turn and press flat.
Ladder Stitch the top opening.

Place your roll in front of you with so that you’re looking at the back of it. Measure 10cm across from the left hand side and 10cm up from the bottom and pin the centre point of your ribbon to this spot. Stitch the ribbon to the roll but be sure not to stitch all the way through tacking down one of the pouches. I find tucking my finger in one of the pouched so I can feel when the needle is through the fabric and stop it going through the pouches. This should also line up so that this little line of stitching doesn’t show when you turn the roll over as it’s inside on the little pockets.

And Voila! Your roll is complete! Please let us know how you got on with this project and if you share on social media tag us in with #bunyippotm so we can see them!

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Project of the Month: Cross stitch Needle Case

We have a lovely new member of staff, Alice who is an amazing sewer and makes the cutest things. She’s going to be making different projects using fat quarters and this month she’s made this adorable needle book. Here’s how to make your own. 

qrf

You will need:

Your favourite cross stitch design, Aida Fabric, Embroidery thread, 
Fabric & Felt in 2 Contrasting Colours

Tools and Equipment:

Sewing Machine, Thread, Fabric Scissors, Ruler, Pen / Tailors Chalk,
Iron and Ironing board, Pinking Shears.

Let’s get making…

1. I’ve used a design from Hygge, issue 162 of the Rico Embroidery Series of Books, which are fabulous (come and see them in the shop). The size of the design you choose will define the size of your needle case. The design I went for ended up with a final size of 3.5cm by 6.5cm, which is pretty small so I wouldn’t recommend going any smaller than this but you can go bigger!

2. Sew your lovely design and then draw a rectangle / square around it with a 2cm border. 1cm of this will be the seam allowance (which will continue through all of this project) then the remaining 1cm will act as a border around your design. Cut.

Using your fabric, cut out the same size piece as you’ve just cut, then place on top of each other front sides facing, and pin.

3. With your aida fabric on top, stitch down the right hand side using the holes / lines in the aida fabric to keep your stitching straight.
Open out the seam and press with an iron.

4. Now cut out from your remaining fabric a matching rectangle (double the size of your first piece of fabric), place on top of sewn pieces, front sides together and pin.
Stitch along 3 sides of your fabric. Top, Right and Bottom, leaving a hole in the whole of the left hand side.

5. Snip the corners, turn and press. Next turn in the whole rough edge 1cm, press with an iron and then stitch as close to the edge either by hand or machine.

6. Prep your felt. You want one piece of felt 1/2cm smaller than your aida size, and another 1cm smaller. For example my finished stitching leaves a rectangle of 10cm x 8cm. I’ve cut one rectangle 9cm x 7cm and another 8cm x 6cm.

7. Layer up your felt going in order: Smallest piece of felt on top, then the larger piece of felt, then the rectangle of fabric on the bottom with the section of cross stitch on the outside.

8. Pin in place and flip the whole thing over so you are now looking at your cross stitch design and the other half of fabric. Stitch down the join between your aida and fabric so that the stitches are relatively hidden from the outside.

And you’re done! You should have a little book like needle case with multiple pages to keep you pins and needles nice and safe!

9. Share your amazing needle book on our social media page!