Little Sewing School: Lesson seven

This months Little Sewing School was inspired by my children's passion of doing arts and crafts everywhere and my passion of not having a million colored pencils at the bottom of all of our bags. I did something similar with my knitting needles a few years back but instead of the ribbon tie I used for that project, I added elastic here so I wouldn't be asked a million times to tie up their roll. You're welcome ;)  They LOVED these and going out for dinner and on airplanes is going to be a much more enjoyable and organized event now. Yippee! Plus we learned a few things of course. Hope you enjoy this project as much as we did! 

For this project you are going to need: 

3 panels of fabric 13" x 9"

2 pieces of elastic 4 1/2" long (I used 1/4" elastic)

a box of 12 colored pencils.

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The skills learned in this project are:

- practicing sewing in a straight line

- sewing with elastic

1. Choose which fabric you want as the bottom half of the pencil roll (the part that you will insert the pencils into. Fold that fabric in half lengthways and press. Lie that fabric across the bottom part of the other inside fabric you have chosen with the fold line in the center. Stay stitch in place. 

2. Sew lines along folded piece 1 1/2” from each edge and 1” apart. You may want to pre-mark these lines with a ruler and chalk to ensure straight lines.

3. Fold elastic in half and place 2 1/2” from the top and 2 1/2” from bottom. Stay stitch in place by sewing back and forth to hold it tight. 

4. Lay final piece of fabric face down on top of other piece and stitch around the edge leaving a few inches open on the opposite short side that the elastic is on. Clip corners.

5. Turn right side out through the area you left open and press. Use a chopstick to press the corners out. Hand or machine stitch the open area closed. 

This is Lesson 7 of our 12 part series aimed at teaching your little one how to use the sewing machine and then creating a different and fun project each time. If you are jumping in now I recommend popping back to the first lesson that covers introducing your child to the machine and starting from there. This course is designed with you guiding your child through each lesson and is not meant or recommended for your child to go at it alone. Children should be supervised at all times while using the sewing machine and iron.

We hope you're having fun in little sewing school! Join in next month for the next lesson. We'd love to see your own sewing school in action using our lessons so please tag us in #pplittlesewingschool to share the fun! If you have any questions or comments leave them in our new interactive comment bar below or join us for inspiration and fun in our Puzzle Pattern Facebook Group!