Crayon Roll Tutorial

Hey howdy hey! I think this is my first sewing tutorial. YAY for me!

Now the crayon roll is not a new idea, I've seen them before. I wanted to do my own and so here it is. I started making these because I'm using up leftover material and sending them to Angelsfortheforgotten which will go into their bags for kids going into crisis or foster care. Yes once again its another charity pattern. What can I say, I just enjoy helping!

This really is easy to make, and if you were to set up a bit of a production line you could easily make a few in an hour. As always, do what you will with these patterns just don't copy the images and text and pretend it came from your brain, that's a no-no ok. I think these would do well at school fetes and boot sales as well as fundraising!

For this tutorial you will need:

Some material. I have some cotton blends.
50cm of ribbon
a measuring tape or ruler
some cardboard or paper if you want a pattern.
pins
cotton
a marker
crayons
and a sewing machine.







First some measurements. I'm using Ben10 crayons that are thick and chunky and excellent for smaller hands. They need pockets that are 3cm wide to fit in snugly.

My template is a simple square that measures 22cm x 17cm This includes seam allowance.
On my template, you can see I've marked off the spaces for the crayons. I put a mark at 11cm, then counted on each side 3cm gaps.

The material! You need to cut 3 pieces of material out for one roll. I use 2 colours, however you can use multiple. I have one for the pocket and one for the back and front. Cut out your three pieces!

Fold your front pocket piece in half, and pin it to the backing piece. Right sides up and so the fold is at the top!

Using a fabric marker (if you have one, or you can be a slaphappy like me and just use one of the kids markers) put some small dots on the bottom of the pocket material so you know where your lines need to be sewn.

Now its simply a matter of feeding the material through your sewing machine to create straight lines, starting at the bottom and going right to the top of the backing piece of material. You should up with 7 stitched lines.

I know I know, I could have picked a better cotton, but its all I had. Trim the cotton dags off.

Cut a piece of ribbon to 50cm. Fold it in half. Stitch the fold end to the material as shown below.

I put mine on the right side, but really you can put it on either. Just make sure that the ties are facing inwards.

Now place the 3rd piece of material on top of the pocket piece, right sides facing. Make sure to tuck the ribbon in so you do not sew over the free ends. Pin it down and sew around the edges, making sure to leave a gap about 3 inches wide so you can turn it.

Reach in and grab the ribbon and pull it through the gap, this will help you turn the whole thing in the right way.

Now you have this annoying little gap to deal with. Most people would go ahead and hand sew that closed. Alas, like I've stated before, my hand sewing skills are horrid bad shocking disastrous! So starting in the bottom left hand corner, I top stitch very very close to the edge up the left side, across the top and down the right side. This gives it a nice edge and closes that pesky gap for me!

Give it a quick iron to make sure its all sitting flat and all you have left to do is fill it with crayons!

And to prove that even I make muff-ups and these things don't just work out amazingly, here is my first one. Which is a little short, and has top stitching all the way around. I guess we all learn from trial and error huh!