Sunday, February 01, 2009

Crayon Roll

Today my husband's family is celebrating my husband's brother's stepdaughter's birthday. (Confused yet?) I think the birthday girl is turning 7. Factor in the recent knowledge that my husband will be getting a 2.7% paycut for the next school year, I've been bucking down on creating more homemade gifts.

Today's gift is costing me $1.64 for the Crayon box, bunches of scraps and several hours of my time. :)


I cut strips of 8"x1.5". Later I'll discover I made the strips too tall.

Arranged and sewn in a rainbow of my pleasing.


For the "holder" part, I cut a 5.5" strip and ironed it wrong sides together.

The crayons measured 3.5" tall, so I figured a 2.5 tall after-seam-allowances holder would work out nicely.


Next I layered the backing, too-fluffy batting, rainbow and then the holder strip.

I'd very strongly recommend a much thinner batting! Like warm and natural or the thinnest polyester you have.


Here I'm testing to see how the crayons look in the roll. I sewed up and down each column.

And that's when I realized that my plan of folding the top half of the roll over the crayons just wasn't going to work. It's the batting's fault. ;)


So before I put the binding on, I hacked off 2.5" from the top. I also ironed it so it wouldn't poof so much.

I wanted to fold over the top to prevent the crayons from falling out, but I think they're snug enough.


Here I'm making the ties for the roll. I took a 1.5" strip, ironed wrong sides together to make a crease.

Then I opened it again, ironed the edges to the middle, then ironed the middle crease back in. Finished off with sewing a line down the open side to keep the tie together.


Before hand sewing the binding down, I attached the ties.

I went back and forth over it three times, because I wanna make sure it doesn't come apart! :)


All the crayons properly in their place.

It does bow a little bit because I didn't make any extra fabric room when sewing on the holder.


All rolled up and tied!

I'm not sure if I would make this again. I know it took me 4 hours. Perhaps because of the too thick batting, perhaps because I didn't know exactly what I was doing.


And I knew there was a reason why I don't work with miniature quilts very much. 4 hours of work and using up only half a yard of fabric? Yikes! I have too much fabric to work that slowly. ;)

Leah

10 comments:

Lori said...

Leah very cute. My daughter made one for her husbands colored pencils last week also. She was planning to try a crayon one this week. I made something close to that before you were born, :-) for crochet hooks and than my knitting needles, still have them.

Quilts And Pieces said...

Oh but I love it!

Unknown said...

Leah, that is an absolutely adorable gift! I am sorry it took four hours, but maybe next time you will zip through it.

Evelyn aka Starfishy said...

I think it is a perfect gift for a 7 year old girl! Very pretty use of your scraps!!! Next time you make one - it will go much faster. Great tutorial.
Cheers! Evelyn

Katie Z. said...

Very cute!

Valerie the Pumpkin Patch Quilter said...

Cute! Lol* I have seen these all over blogland lately and want to try one too. I can't believe it took so long to make though! :) I think the least fun part would be binding that little bugger. I don't know why but I hate binding little things. I feel like I'd rather save the effort for something large! :) Very nice job though, and it's sure to make somebody little very happy!

AmyK said...

I've been wanting to make one of those since I saw it in a magazine two years ago.
But sewing it all by hand? I don't think so! Too cute, though.

Chrissie said...

Hey, sweetie! That turned out real neat! I think you could have folded it over and been just fine without the batting, but if you wanted to have a little extra thickness, just put another piece of fabric in between the layers - an old piece that you're getting tired of, of course! :) I have old sheets I've been collecting that make great liners for baby quilts and light quilts that you don't want too thick. Anyway - enough of my two cents! Check out my blog in the next week I hope to have something to say (as if anyone gives a hoot! :) gonna give it another try! :)
Take care!
Christine

Sherry said...

I'm sure that if you were to make another one it wouldn't take 4 hours.

The first one of anything is the hardest. I have a table runner that took me almost an entire day just to make the top. The wording of the pattern just didn't seem to make any sense, after getting so frustrated that I was ready to chuck the entire thing I went back & looked at the pictures. Once I did that the top went together in 15 minutes (and I could have saved ALOT of aggravation if I had just done that in the beginning!).

Now that you have the pattern down you don't have to analyze, devise, measure, etc.

One thing that could speed things up, should you wish to make another one, is to use wide ribbon for the ties (if you have a ribbon stash, that is).

Sorry for such a long comment.

Have a wonderful day,

Blu Grey said...

I love it! These are sooo wonderful for trips to appointments. Im hoping to make one that has a pocket behind the crayons for coloring pages. I really like the colorful fabric you used though.