Cloth Pencil Case with Ribbon Tie

This Christmas I was lucky enough to spend with my sister and her new extended family in California! When she got married this last Spring, she gained 7 siblings and countless cousins. Mr. Lucky and I count ourselves as part of the family now too, and invited ourselves to be included in this year’s festivities. With so many family members, they have a tradition of doing secret santa for Christmas, and so this year we got in on that too. :) I won’t say who I pulled, but she asked for anything arts and crafts related- my specialty! So I took my time and raided my own stash of materials, as well as buying some new supplies at Micheal’s. There was one thing I wanted to make rather than buy though, a pencil case. So here is a short tutorial on how I made this simple, ribbon tied pencil case!

First, I found two fabrics I wanted to use- both were scraps that I’ve had from other projects I’ve made. The outer fabric measured approximately 14″ wide by 24″ long. The inner fabric measured about 12″ wide and 23″ long. You can make your own bigger or smaller, just make sure to give yourself plenty of room to fold over and make nice edges.

Fabric for Pencil Case

You can see in this picture the fabric laid out with the good sides facing away from each other. I’ve folded over the bottom edge twice and pinned it. Sew on the other side so that the “good” side is facing out when finished.

Next, I slit a very small hole at the “top” of the fabric, where I wanted to have the ribbon come out. I folded over the fabric so I could see where I wanted the ribbon to be since I wanted it on the outside of the case. Sew the ribbon to the fabric. And make sure you have plenty of ribbon to wrap around the entire case at least once.

Sew ribbon to fabric

Here’s a picture of the back so you can see where I just doubled over the ribbon, and sewed it. I went over it many times in the hopes that it will never come out.

Backside of sewn ribbon

Fold over the top twice, to make a nice edge, and sew along the edge.

Fold over fabric and sew

And here you can see that the ribbon is on the outside of the flap.

Ribbon on outside of flap

Now, fold over and pin both edges. Sew at least as far down as the flap is going to be.

Fold over sides and sew

Fold the pencil case the opposite way of how you want it to go, and sew the two edges. To not have the flap fold over like mine does, sew the sides on the outside edge of where the flap is.