Quick and Easy Pencil Case Tutorial

I am making some pencil cases for our Christmas shoe boxes and thought I'd share how I'm doing them ............ it's very quick and easy!  Clicking on the pictures will enlarge them.

Materials
10" x 13" main fabric
10" x 13" lining fabric
Sew in Velcro
Matching thread

The main fabric should be hardwearing ie. furnishing fabrics,  corduroy, cotton velvet, denim etc. with quite a strong fabric ie. a good calico weight for the lining.  If the fabric is not too strong it can always be  backed with another fabric ie. foundation patchwork.

Right sides together, fold one shorter end up leaving a 2.5" gap at the top.

Stitch sides with a suitable seam allowance and finishing off securely at both ends.  Clip bottom corners as shown (quite close to the stitching but not too near that it's likely to meet the seam or fray) This was a trial one (the fabric was heavily painted thus quite stiff) ......... it isn't necessary to trim the side seams as in the photo above.

Repeat as above with the lining fabric.

Turn main fabric right side out and place in the lining right sides together to make a pocket as shown above.  Matching side seams and fabric all the way round, pin main fabric to lining along front of "pocket" and around flap. 

Stitch main fabric to lining across the front and all the way around the flap (as shown above) leaving about 3" gap somewhere to turn later.  Double stitch around the inner corner for about 1" for some extra strength.  Clip inner corner (not quite to the stitching) as shown.  Also, clip diagonally across top corners of flap (I forgot to photograph that bit).

Turn right side out through the gap and slip stitch gap closed.  Press if necessary.  Top stitch about 0.25" across top of front and all the way around flap as shown.  Stitch soft part of Velcro to flap and matching piece to front of pencil case.

One durable, easy to pack in a shoebox, pencil case!  The metallic print on the furnishing fabric I used wasn't very sparkly so I'm adding some glitter to make it a little bit special.

They're idea for using up all those little scraps to do a piece of crazy patchwork for the main outer fabric .............

If you decide to have a go, do let me know if the instructions and photos in my little pencil case sewing tutorial are clear enough and do please link back ........... I'd like to see them.
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