Project Roll

I watched an inspiring video tutorial by Vonna Pfeiffer - The Twisted Stitcher - the other day. It was her tutorial on making a project roll. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, it can be used to store a project currently being worked on or for finished pieces that haven't been fully finished yet.

I started out making one as an intended gift but quilted the non-fusible batting to the outer fabric before sewing it to the lining. This resulted in the lining being loose and all pucker-y when I rolled the roll up. On another careful watching of Vonna's video, I noted that she quilted all three pieces together after sewing the three sides and turning it right side out. D'uh! She was careful to not quilt beyond the binding seam. So I set it aside and did another one the right way. I gave it to the intended recipient last Sunday.

It took me a couple of days to think of a way to salvage the first roll. Finally I realized I could mirror the quilting just a 1/4" away. That way, it the lining was quilted with one pass and the outer fabric and batting had double lines.

lining is now quilted to the other two layers

exterior has double quilting lines.

I remember buying this fabric in March of 2018 in McAllen TX. It was the first year of the bee craze. I was attracted to the monarch-ish butterflies.

Basically for this pattern, I cut the fabrics and batting 19" x 32", although it is easily customized for any dimension. With fabric right sides together and batting on top of one of the fabrics, stitch around 3 sides leaving one short side open. After clipping the corners, turn inside out and stitch around the 3 sides 3/8" from the edge, creating a faux binding. Then quilt the piece. I used the 45 degree mark on my cutting mat as a guide. I prefer the 30 degree angle and used it on a subsequent roll, creating quilted diamond. Starting in the corner of the faux binding seam I marked the stitching line with chalk. After I had a quilt line in each direction, I simply used my 3" wide ruler to mark parallel quilting lines in chalk.

I made two padded ends with a cardboard circle the same circumference as the end of the tube, circles of batting a bit bigger and, the outer fabric a bit bigger than that. By hand, I basted around the fabric about 1/8" in from the raw edge and then sandwiched the batting between the interior of it and the cardboard disk - pulling on the basting threads yo-yo style.

I pre-wrapped the unsewn edge of the quilt around the 1 1/2" diameter mailing tube, marking the tube, and then trimming it to the exact width of the roll.

I used basting spray to make the tube sticky and wrapped the raw edge end of the quilt around the tube. and overlapping by 1/2", hand-stitched the edges firmly with small stitches (shown by arrow, below) before hand-stitching the padded ends to the first wrap of the fabric around the tube.

I then ran a bead of glue along the raw edge of the fabric and rolled the roll up. This attaches the raw edge to the lining and seals that end of the roll.

I cut two 32" pieces of 1/2" ribbon and marked (with heat erasable pen) 10" in from one end. I measured in 3 1/2" in from the edge of the roll and made a mark on the 'binding' of the short end of the roll. With the longer end of the ribbon pointing away from the end of the roll, I stitched the marked spot on the ribbon to the roll in the 'ditch' of the binding seam. I Fray-checked both ends of the ribbon but clear nail polish would have worked as well.

When rolling up the roll, I wrap the longer end of the ribbon around twice and tie in a bow with the shorter end.

And the roll is finished.

For this project, I purchased the mailing tube at Staples. The skinnier the tube, the better - as it takes less fabric to wrap around it and more for the actual flat part of the roll. For wider project rolls, there are longer tubes - and they're proportionately bigger in diameter. Longer tubes can always be trimmed down to fit the exact width of the project roll.

These are great gifts for stitchers. I highly recommend viewing Vonna's video on this subject before starting this project. Her finishing tutorials are excellent and the materials she uses are easily obtainable and inexpensive.

I can now transfer my many finished stitching pieces from the towel they're currently rolled up in to my spiffy new roll.