Tutorial- making a pencil roll

If you are like me and have a BUNCH of colouring in pencils.......and not the cheap ones........You,like me will hate it when they get banged about in a pencil case and the lead breaks within the pencil, then every time you go to sharpen it it breaks again! 
I have solved this problem with a idea that i saw. A pencil roll.


It is really simple, all you will need is some scrap fabric, wadding, 2 metres elastic and some old ribbon or binding tape.
Firstly, Cut yourself 2 pieces of fabric size 70cm x 35cm with your pinking shears or a rotary cutter. then cut yourself a piece of wadding the same size.
Make a sandwich with fabric- wadding - fabric with the wrong sides of the fabric touching the wadding.
(sorry i should have taken a pic of this...i forgot!!)
Sew around the outside edge of the whole rectangle.
Take your elastic and cut in 1/2 (2 lots of 1 mtr) place across the fabric rectangle approx 1/4 from the bottom and then 1/2 way. pin.


Sew across the fabric and elastic the whole length down every 11/2 - 2 cm (depending on the thickness of your pencils) keep doing this the whole way till the end. You should get approx 45 -50 places depending on your spacing.
Trim off excess elastic.
Hem your whole rectangle of fabric with either binding tape or like me some ribbon. I used grosgrain ribbon as it is a little stronger.

And you are done. You can use a bit of ribbon to roll and tie it together like i did or you can even fold it instead.
Here is mine all filled up with my aqua pencils.

And here are my trusty Fiskars tools that i used THe Pinking shears are Great to stop fraying and the rotary cutter is great to cut those long straight lines!!!


Tara:)

A Christmas Apron.

Hello there! I love to be festive throughout the christmas period so i make myself an apron each year.
This year i have made a 1/2 apron with lots of frills! And then i thought what a great gift for Zoes teacher!!!'So now i am making 2!!!
You will have to bear with me when i show you how to make this great apron as i cannot seem to find the pics i took as i was making it. so i will have to show you what i can.

wonky block quilt part 3 putting it all together.

Good evening everyone, Well after a busy 2 days i can finally share with you all part 3 of my wonky block quilt...well duvet cover actually!

Ok, once you have put the quilt together you now need to attach the edges of the quilt. by accident i ran out of material so i managed to get a similar colour to edge the quilt.


cut your fabric to the width you need and then sew to your quilt. i recommend to do the long sides first.

once both sides are sewn on, trim the ends.

once this is done sew the top strip on to the quilt.

Now as i am making this quilt into a duvet cover you need to reinforce the bottom strip as you will have to sew on buttons or clips to it.
So firstly make your last strip twice as wide as the other  strips. fold in 1/2 and iron.
then with some webbing or iron on interfacing place a small strip(approx. 2 inches) at the crease and iron on.


Then iron the fold over again.

Now you can sew the last strip to your quilt. make sure you sew the rough end to the quilt not the folded end with the interfacing.
Now Zoe wanted sponge bob to have something to play with and what better thing to applique onto the quilt than jellyfish! So i grabbed my Making memories Slice and cut out a LOT of jellyfish with the Zootopia design card. Then i appliqued them on. it took a LONG time!!!!!

Now it is time for the Back of the quilt. I have decided not to actually "quilt" my quilt as i am making it in to a duvet cover...plus i am a little lazy when it comes to quilting!
So to make this quilt into a duvet cover i purchased a Flat sheet from spotlight to use as the backing. Make sure you buy a good quality sheet as the cheaper ones are way to thin.
Line up the flat sheet so the "top" or double thickness part of the sheet is at the bottom of the quilt. this gives strength to sew on buttons and clips. pin the flat sheet to the quilt and sew. Remember you need to keep the bottom open so you can put the duvet in!( i say this but you can be assured i have done sillier things!)

Sew on your buttons or clasps, pop your duvet in and there you have it!

Zoe is a very happy girl! and as i have a spare wonky block left i am going to make a matching pillow case.
Tara:)

Wonky block part 3

Hello!
Today I will share with everyone how to put together your wonky block quilt.
If you missed part 1 it is here.
Once you have got all your wonky block squares made up it is time to put them all together. The first thing you have to decide is how big you want your quilt. For Zoe's Sponge bob Square pants quilt, i am actually making it to be a duvet cover (which i will show you all in part 3) so i measured up Zoe's bed and realized i need it to be approx 66 inches x 92 inches. To work out how big you need your stripping between your blocks add the width of each block square.( mine are 11inches...they were suppose to be 12 inches but accidents happen!!!) take away 1/2 inch for the sewing (1/4 inch each side of the block you will loose when sewing together) and then add up how many blocks you will have along the total width of your quilt. I had 3 blocks so it totaled 31.5 inches. so take away the total width of the quilt you require and that should give you the total width of stripping you need to divide between each block. so my will be 66(the width of my quilt) - 31.5(the total width of my blocks minus the 1/2 inch for each block allowed for sewing) = 34.5 inches total for stripping and if i divide this by 4 which is how many strips i will need to go around 3 blocks i come up with 8.5 inches. Now to me it looked a little wide for stripping so i adjusted it to 6.5 inches and added 1/2 inch for sewing together.
Do the same maths for the length of your quilt and that should total your stripping. If you are not quite sure please feel free to contact me via the comments.
so cut your strips to the correct length and width.


Once you have your strips cut. pin the first strip to one of your wonky blocks.Then sew.


 Take your next wonky block and place wrong way up onto the block and strip that is sewn together. line up your block with the sewn one to ensure your blocks will be straight and in line with each other then sewn together.

Sew together.
Pin the next strip to your block and again sew.

Do the last 2 steps till you have the desired length of the quilt minus the edging around the blocks.
We will add that at the end.
Once you have sewn as many strips and blocks together that you need trim off the excess fabric.

when finished your blocks and strips should look like this.

Once you have sewn your little strips between all the blocks it is time to add the long lengths of fabric that will join the strips together. Make sure you line up all your blocks so they look straight.
When finished it should look like this.

Once all are joined the quilt should look like the picture below.

In Part 3 i will show you how to add the strips around the edge of the quilt, add some applique( i am going to add Sponge bobs favourite thing.... krabby patties and jelly fish!) and how to add a flat sheet to make the patchwork into a duvet cover.
Tara :)

Wonky Block Quilt Part 1

My Daughter zoe has been pestering me for a Sponge bob Square pants Quilt.
I looked EVERYWHERE for sponge bob material and all i could find were 2 fat quarters on ebay.
Now that was not going to make a quilt was it!
So i decided to make a wonky block quilt.this type of block is great if you have little bits of fabric that you want to highlight...like sponge bob!
All i need is a sewing machine quilters ruler my trusty Fiskars rotary cutter and my Fiskars large mat.Oh and more fabric of course!

The first thing i did for my wonky block was to cut out sponge bob from the 2 fat quarters.


I Then started to cut my fabric into strips about the same width as the sponge bob squares i cut out.

I then pinned the first bit of material to my square. make sure that the patterned material you use is cut a little longer than the square you are sewing it to.

Then sew the 2 bits together and then iron the seam flat on one side.

Once this is done trim the right side to be straight and then cut another piece of material strip as long as the right side(actually a little longer about 2 Cm's)

sew the 2 pieces together.

Trim the bottom and then cut a different fabric to sew onto the bottom of the block you are creating.

Trim the right side and again cut a bit of fabric to sew onto the right side.

Now comes the first half of the Wonky bit for the wonky block.
Put your ruler on an angle on the top of the square you have made.

Trim along the ruler.

I then line up the cut line with a straight line on my Fiskars cutting mat and then trim straight the other 3 sides. i try to aim for my square to be about 7-8 inches by the time i have trimmed the first layer of the block so after you have added the second layer and trimmed you have a 12 inch block.

 once all trimmed you should have a square like this.....

for the second layer of the wonky block you do the same as the first layer. starting at the top and working around from the right.




once all sewn together. place your ruler on and angle the opposite way you places it on the first layer. Cut, then line up again with a line on your mat and trim around the square till you get a 12 inch square or what ever size you want.
the finished block will look like this.....

Make as many square you need to make your quilt. i am making 16 as i want to make the quilt quite large as i will turn the quilt into a duvet cover.
In part 2 i will show you how to construct the quilt.
Happy sewing....
Tara :)