HURRAH!

I did it - I finally sewed something! With my sewing machine (other than paper that is).  The Grumpy One (aka The Husband) was home today and I got him to help me oil the sewing machine. It now no longer sounds like a chaff cutter.

I mentioned that I wanted to make a pencil roll, so once the machine was oiled and other piles of mess in the office/craft room (one could call it The Studio I suppose!) were dealt with,  I had a go. Completely winged it, followed no pattern except what I had seen from images gathered from around the web.

I decided to be lazy and use felt - no turning of seams!

I did remember reading that felt would stretch and to use ribbon or something to give some strength to the top edge.  I used some wide-ish pink ribbon.  I roughly pinned a couple of crayons into place to work out my spacings, then pinned and sewed the green bit to the flower bit.  Then I sewed that bit to the front, around the edge, and then the spotty ribbon to hold the roll together.

Considering this is the first real sewing project I've done in about a gazillion years, it didn't take long - maybe 40 minutes?  Its not perfect, but good enough that I feel happy to give it away to our little neice for Christmas (so Suzi, if you read this please pretend to be VERY surprised when she opens this come Christmas!)

The crayons I have used are BIC brand and are called Plastidecor - they are just lovely to use and claim to be "extra clean" (I bought mine from Woollies). My kids have used them before and they are brilliant for colouring in ordinary old recycled paper colouring books.

Now, I best go and check that my sewing machine has gotten over the shock of being used!