Tool Roll

I didn't have any intention of making another tool roll until I went to the bookstore.  I had made one for myself over a year ago and I still like it a lot.

But over the weekend I made this one out of flannel.

You know how it is with magazines - all shiny and colorful and inspiring.  I picked this one because it had lots of small projects that I could make for our guild to sell, and because it was under $10.  I have a really hard time spending more than that for a magazine.

The tool roll looked like a fun and easy project.  Plus I've been looking for ways to use up some of my material in short bursts.  I seem to have collected too many fat quarters that don't really go with anything else.

The way I made this wasn't exactly like the magazine's directions.  They have a narrow, batting-filled strip sewn across the width of the roll, between the top edge and the pocket.  I can't figure out what it's for.  It's not a skinny pocket - it's almost like a bumper to cushion the scissor handles.  Whatever.  I left it off.

I liked this pattern because it was one big square, 18" x 18".   You make a sandwich and quilt it,  then fold the bottom up to make the pocket.  My sandwich was a little smaller - 14" x 18" before folding.  The finished dimension is approximately 9" x 18", with a 5" pocket.

The other thing I like about it is the binding.  The roll I made for myself last year was sewn right sides together, then turned inside out and top stitched.  I like the extra decoration that binding gives.

The pattern calls for making your own ties, but I like to use non-satin ribbon instead - much easier.

Quilting was free-form horizontal lines.  Good thing the print was non-directional, because my stitching was a little slanty.  I picked the edge that was straightest and that was the one that got folded to the inside.  Because of the strong contrast between the aqua and orange, the misalignment would have been too obvious.

I machine stitched the binding on the top edge of the pocket, but hand stitched the binding on the outer edges.

There was enough leftover flannel to make another little project from the magazine.  More on that later.