Simple and adorable Personalized Pencil Cases that even a beginner sewer can do!
I taught myself how to sew back when my girls were smaller. I enjoyed making them pillowcase dresses, aprons and crayon rolls. Since having my son 4 years ago I find that I just don’t have the time to sew like I used to. He’s my little crazy boy and is into EV.ERY.THING! Seriously, the kid is all boy and keeps me on my toes. If I’m sewing then he’s up to no good. But, I decided “the heck with it” the other day and busted out my sewing machine (and Silhouette Cameo) to make these adorable Personalized Pencil Cases for back to school.
This project is super easy so if you are a beginner at sewing, you can totally pull it off. I’m not great at writing tutorials but I will do my best! Note: I did not take any photos of the process of cutting out my fabric letters with my Cameo but Craftaholics Anonymous did a great tutorial on it HERE.
SUPPLIES
1 Piece of 8.5×11 copy paper (this is your pattern)
Canvas or Drop Cloth Fabric
Coordinating Fabric for lettering
Fusible Interfacing
Paracord or String
Safety Pin
Sewing Machine
Scissors
Iron
Step One: Lay copy paper down on your canvas, pin in place and cut out pattern. I have 2 pieces shown in the photo because I was making 2 pencil cases. Cut out as many as you need.
Step Two: Fold fabric down about one inch on the 8.5″ side. Iron flat.
Step Three: Make holes so that you can thread your cord through once you are done with the project. I folded my folded edge in half and then folded the whole piece of fabric in half as shown in photo below. Next I estimated where I wanted my holes to be and snipped through the fabric just enough so that I had room to thread my cord through later on. I hope this part makes sense. I tried to take good pictures of the process.
Step Four: Take your fabric letters and lay them out where you want them on the pencil case. Make sure you are ironing them down on the right side of the fabric. Also, make sure you leave enough room for the seam as you still need to sew your pencil case together.
Step Five: Once you have the letters ironed down, you need to sew over them. Now, I have never sewed over letters before and my sewing is not the greatest to begin with so I took a little short cut and love the results. I basically just started at one end of the letters and sewed across all squiggly. I turned around and did the same thing in the opposite direction. I continued to do this until all of my letters were stitched. This part is actually kind of fun and it takes the stress off of trying to sew around the letters perfectly. The photo below is not the greatest but I hope you can get the idea.
Step Six: Now it’s time to sew your pencil case together. While your fabric is flat, you want to sew that top fold so that you have a loop to thread your cord through. Then you want to fold the fabric long ways with right sides together and sew the bottom of the case and along the long side.
Clip the corner and turn pencil case right side out.
Step Seven: It’s now time to thread your cord through the bag so that the pencil case can be pulled closed at the top.
Attach a safety pin to the end of your cord and thread it through one hole on the front of the bag. Keep going until it is threaded through both holes in the front and both holes in the back. Next do the same thing but start at the opposite side. You want to end up with 2 strings on each side of the bag. By doing this it allows you to pull the strings tight so the bag closes. Tie the ends of the cord on both sides together. You can see what I mean by the photo below (I hope)!!
Now you have these adorable personalized pencil cases for your kids to bring to school with them. Now that you know the concept of creating a bag with the pull string closure you can make it in any size. Make them smaller to hold crayons; bigger to hold books or clothes. There are lots of options.
