Paintbrush Roll-Up (tutorial) - DIY Easy Sewing Project

My sister, Annie, is way cooler than me. She is four years younger and ever since she was able to be awesome she was as awesome as awesome is. I mean she had three Halloween costumes this year: Frida Kahlo, Max from Where the Wild Things Are, and Davis Bowie. I mean if thats not awesome, I don't know what is!

 

Annie is an amazing artist. She is an art major and one of her favorite mediums is painting. I have been meaning to make her some art supplies totes and cases. I want to make her a pencil case, a bag, a sketch book cover, a colored pencil roll-up, and so many other things! At the rate I'm going she will be graduated and on to living her awesome life before I get any of it made.

For Christmas I made her this awesome Paintbrush Roll-Up. Its really easy, a perfect beginning sewing project. It doesn't take a lot of fabric and can be put together in an afternoon.

Confession: Every once in a while (read: more often than I would like to admit), when I make up my own patterns, I have moments of sheer stupidity. With this project it was that I totally forgot to cut two pieces for the main body of the roll-up. It was a moment of "OMG! Corey, what were you thinking?" Thankfully, this was not a big oops, easy to fix, just cut one more piece of fabric. The only fabric I had that matched the other fabrics was a scrap from another project, so I stitched up the scrap and went with it. The only problem I had with this scrappy fabric was that it had a slight stretch. I would not suggest using anything with stretch.

Paintbrush Roll-Up
What You Will Need:

• two pieces of fabric cut to 22" x 19"
• one piece of fabric cut to 22" x 2.5"
• two pieces of fabric cut to 18" x 2.5"

Fold each 18" x 2.5" (the long skinny pieces) in half right sides together. Stitch up the long sides using a 1/4" seam allowance. Hook a safety pin in one end of one of the tubes, feed the safety pin back through the tube until it comes out the other end. Keep pulling the tube thought itself so that its all right-side-out.

Fold one end of the tubes inside and stitch it up. 

Pin the 22" x 2.5" piece along the right 22" side of the main piece, right sides together. It should be 1" from the edge. Stitch along the right side edge of the 22" x 2.5" piece. Fold and press the 22" x 2.5" over so that the right side of the fabric is on the right side.

Layer the two large pieces of fabric on top of each other with right sides together. Pin the tie strips, with the unfinished ends stitching sticking out and the strips on the inside of the sandwich. Make sure you leave a hole for turning, I make this with thee pins as I did in the picture. Using a 1/2" seal allowance stitch around the outside edge of the sandwich, leaving that hole for turning. Trim the corners. 

Pull the sandwich through itself so its right sides out. Press. Fold the raw edge that was left for turning to the inside and pin. Fold up the bottom (the 18") edge 5", pin in place. This is what will create the pocket for the paintbrushes. Top stitch around the edge of the whole roll-up, using the edge of the presser foot lined up with the edge of the fabric as a seam allowance.

Using chalk or a washable fabric marker marker the stitch lines for the pockets. These lines should run the full length of the roll-up. The lines can be the same width or various. I made the pockets varied from 3/4" to 2" wide. Stitch along these lines from top to bottom. Make sure you don't catch the ties in the process. Brush off the chalk or use a damp cloth to gently rub it off. 

Add paintbrushes (or pens, pencils and markers) and fold over the top edge (should be about 4").  Roll up the case and tie  it off. There you have it! Good to go to art class!

I just LOVE the way this turned out! I can't wait to give it to my sister. She will have many more paintbrushes than I do to fill it with. I am sure she will love this as much as I do. Yay for easy sewing projects that turn out so wonderfully!

Here are some more photos to show how great this project is.

 

P.S. This is perfect for pencils, colored pencils, markers, a highlighter collection, pens, crochet hooks, short knitting needles, etc...

The Savannah Bag

My wonderful niece, Savannah, just started preschool and her mom asked me to make her a bag to put her folders and papers into. I had such a good time picking out the fun fabrics and ribbons. 

The only problem I had while making this bag is that my niece has such a long name that it was had to make it fit. The original plan was to write her name with fabric applique letters diagonally across the bag... Yeah, there was no way that was going to happen. So, I ended up adding a strip of fabric around the bottom of the bag and just painting the letters on. I like the way it turned out.

I used the tutorial  for The Twenty Minute Tote from Molly's Sketchbook over at the Purl Bee. (P.S. I love the Purl Bee Blog, check them out for some great inspiration!) I modified the pattern a little, added some ribbons to the top of the bag, added the fabric stripe to the bottom, and made the straps out of fabric instead of using webbing. Its a super easy and quick pattern, and the tutorial is really clear and simple to follow.

I also made a little pompom flower that can be pinned to the bag or be a hair clip! Just cut out a bunch of little circles of fabric. Fold them into quarters, stick a threaded needle through the corner of each folder circle and bunch them all up at the end of the thread. Loop the needle through the whole bunch a few times to secure and then knot. Add a small circle of felt to the back of  the pompom, stitch a safety pin to the felt and hot glue on a small hair clip. That's it! Easy!

(Jude didn't like having a flower in his hair)