Project #35 - Crayon Rolls (finished)

I am not sure if I am on a roll this week or whether it's the fact that Christmas is looming over us, but either way I seem to be accomplishing a fair bit on my craft projects at the moment.

While I was sick last week I did a lot of preparation work on some of the projects I was hoping to get finished before Christmas and I have found that this has helped to speed things up a bit. The projects I hope to get finished this week include the:

• Christmas Traditions book;
• Fabric breast pads;
• Owl mobile;
• Bunting flags; and
• Crayon rolls.

The most important project on the list above were the crayon rolls, as they are part of the Christmas present for two of our nieces. Knowing that they could take longer than expected with this crazy hand problem I have going on, I thought I had really better get a start on them.

I scoured the net and found this tutorial on the You Go Girl! blog. The tutorial was incredibly straight forward and used bits and pieces I already had lying around the house (such as a hair tie, used to secure the roll together). Rather than using 'heavy weight' interfacing as the tutorial suggested, I simply used an iron on Pellon which appeared to give it enough 'structure' to hold it's shape.

One thing to note is that you may need to use multiple layers of the medium weight interfacing depending on the thickness of your outer material. If your outer material is light, then the material you use for the inner section may show through. No big deal, just make sure you check it's opaqueness before sewing it all together!

Anyway, here is a picture of the crayon rolls completed:

and...

The part that took the longest to complete was the slip stitching of the inner side of the bias-binding. I simply cannot work out how to secure bias-binding using just the sewing machine no matter how hard I try. I may just have to source someone who CAN and have them teach me, as no amount of tutorial following ends in a successful result!

I was fairly impressed with how they turned out and am actually thinking about making another one for our other niece, who's birthday is in February. Let's hope the girls like them!