Scrap buster/Christmas gifts

A couple weeks ago, I started making Christmas gifts for my niece and young cousins. All three girls are getting cute Crayola crayon rolls for Christmas. I thought I would share a quick little tutorial on how I made their presents. I am entering this in Sew Mama Sew's scrap buster contest. This is my first tutorial so please c & c are appreciated!

Scrap Buster Crayon Roll Tutorial
I made a few crayon rolls recently for my niece & youngest cousins for Christmas. They are 4 ½, 5 and 7 years old. I’ve seen a number of different crayon rolls out there but I never saw one where each pocket was a different color from the crayon box. Maybe it is my slightly anal-retentive tendencies but I thought it would be fun to give the girls a spot for each crayon.

I made my crayon roll using a box of 24 Crayola crayons but you could make your crayon roll with the 8 or 16 boxes or with the fatter crayons as well. The pockets for the fatter crayons would need to be larger since I found the 1” pockets made for the regular crayons to be large enough for little hands but still secure enough.

Materials needed (for 24 crayons):
24 - Scraps (at least 1.5” by 5.5” or pieced together to make a 1.5” x 5.5” scrap) matching the colors in a box of crayons
2 – 5.5” x 25.5” pieces of fabric for the pocket and back (this could also be pieced)
1 – 5.5” x 25.5” piece of batting, old t-shirt or flannel
2 – 15” pieces of ribbon
Rotary cutter and mat
Thread matching the pocket/back fabric
Sewing machine
Optional: contrasting fabric for names or initials on the back of the roll plus appliqué materials

Cutting:
Start by laying our your crayons and coordinating fabric in the order you plan to sew them. Cut each fabric to 1.5” x 5.5” EXCEPT the 2 end pieces. Cut the end pieces to 2” x 5.5”. **Note: since I was making more than 1 crayon roll, I sewed 1.5” strips together and cut them into 5.5” sections after sewing all the strips together. You can do this too if you plan to make more than one at a time. (This is also why my photos look a little different than my directions)

Cut your back and pocket fabric. You need two 5.5” x 25.5” pieces.
Cut 1 piece of batting at 5.5” x 25.5”. You could also use an old t-shirt or old piece of flannel. I used a piece of batting leftover from a quilt since I always buy my batting several inches larger on each side than needed.

Sewing:
Sew your rainbow scraps together using a ¼” seam allowance. I sewed my scraps in pairs, chain stitching them one after the other. Then I sewed the pairs together (in the proper rainbow order, of course) and kept adding groups of scraps together until all 24 rainbow pieces were sewn. Press all seams to one direction or press open.

Square up your rainbow and trim any excess fabric from the edges. Or if you are sewing more than 1 crayon roll, cut your larger rainbow piece into 5.5” sections. Take your back fabric and 1 of your ribbons. Measure about 10 inches from one edge. Center the ribbon on the back with the long tail going towards the longer section of the back fabric and stitch down. I went around each edge 2-3 times since I did not want my niece/cousins’ little hands ripping the ribbon off later. *Add any additional decorations now. I added my cousin’s initials (H for Hayley and L for Lindsey) since their crayon rolls were identical and I didn’t want a fight later.

Take the other ribbon and center it on the edge closest to where you just sewed the other ribbon and pin.

Take your pocket fabric, fold in half (so you have a 2.75” x 25.5” piece) and press the fold. Pin the pocket to the right side of the rainbow scraps.

Now we’ll make the sandwich:
Layer 1 – batting
Layer 2 – back of roll RIGHT SIDE UP (with the ribbon attached to the back). I pinned my ribbon to the center of the back so I wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally sewing it into one of the sides as I sewed the sandwich J
Layer 3 – rainbow scraps with pocket pinned RIGHT SIDE DOWN. You should be looking at your seams. (I fanned out the layers so you can see how they should look but stack with all edges matched up)

Sew the sandwich together with a ¼” seam allowance. Backstitch several times over the ribbon to make it secure. Make sure to leave a 4-5” opening on 1 side to turn the sandwich. (You may want to leave a slightly larger opening than normal. I found I pulled a couple of my rainbow seams out as I turned my layers while tugged the other pieces through.)

Clip the corners at an angle and turn the sandwich right sides out.

Press the edges of the roll and topstitch with a ¼” (or less) seam allowance with a complementary thread. Now you will need to make the individual crayon pockets. I eyeballed each pocket based on the seam between each of my rainbow fabrics. But you could also use a water soluble marker and mark out each of your pockets before sewing.

Backstitch a couple times at the top and bottom of each pocket. I overlapped my stitching with the rainbow fabric by about 1/4 – 1/2" so that little hands shoving crayons wouldn’t pull out the thread and pocket. (You could use a walking foot for this step but I used my regular foot and didn’t have trouble with fabric bunching.) *Note: be sure to mark where your ribbon is attached to the back so that you do not mistakenly stitch it into one of your pockets or seams. I pulled mine up and pinned it to the edge so I could be sure it didn’t get in the way.

And you are done!!! Here are a couple ideas for variations you could do: use a button instead of ribbon, make a taller roll for colored pencils, the possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

I will have these for sale in my Etsy shop if you prefer to purchase one instead of make it. (Once I get around to setting up my Etsy shop)

****This tutorial is for personal use only. Please link back to this tutorial and do not use this design for commercial/business purposes****