Drum Roll for the Pencil Roll

Well. For once I am not going to be self-deprecating. After the Duffin the Mule Debacle, I have excelled myself. I am, in short, quite brilliant. Sure, this time I went careering off in the polar opposite direction and spent longer preparing for this project than I did making it, by about a million degrees. I read the instructions in Last Minute Patchwork +Quilted Gifts about 14 times. Then a couple more times just to be on the safe side. And then, just to ensure I'd understood, I wrote them out and added drawings and measurements and little notes

Yes. I did as I was told like a good girl, and well. Will you just have a look at this...
It's a pencil roll isn't it? Quite undeniably, and recognisably a pencil roll. With pens in too. 24 pens and pencils all tucked in snug. I'd have loved one of these when I was little.
Yes, no doubt about it - I'm quite astonishingly pleased with myself.
Truth be told it wasn't really that difficult, but then neither was Duffin the Mule, so it just goes to show that if you follow the instructions while you're still learning the results will be better. It was the same with the tea-cosy. I copied those instructions out too, and also did a lot of unpicking and re-measuring. Measure twice, cut once and all that. I also (and here was a stroke of forward-thinking genius) cut two of each strip so I can make another pencil roll in double quick time for another birthday. Oh aren't I just so clever?
Now, don't let me lull you into a false sense of my expertise here - there was a good bit of swearing, and a lot of head-scratching. How the devil I managed to muddle up my colour strips when I thought I'd lain them out and then immediately pinned them together in their right order I really don't know, but I did get in a terrible muddle. There was a lot of "What the...how did that...now hang on, why's that there....didn't I...where's the...which one's this?" going on. Had to unpick a load of stitching and get all the pens and pencils out again and lay out all my colour strips on the floor again to work out which one was meant to go where.

What I like about it is the colours, and the origins of the fabric, which are from all sorts of things: a bit of the border from the living-room curtains, lots of bits of the fabrics sent to me by Elizabeth, including the Woody one (can you see him? Can you see the other ones? This is like a gentle fluffy treasure hunt), old bits of soft furnishings fabric from a bag of remnants bought in Teddington, the bathroom window fabric, bits from Mum's stash I've stolen, leftover bits from my quilt, Isla's curtains in this house and the old one, an old pillowcase, an old Size 6 skirt given to me as a present by my old flatmate in Crouch End when I was a (clearly skinnier) Twenty-Something, an old ball gown my mother made me from my university days, a Husband's old tie and some I just have no idea about.
This will be a present for my goddaughter's sister, who is big fat 3, so just the right age and level of developmental obsessiveness to like sorting out pencils and pens into their rightful pockets. Once I'd finished this, the daughters helped me put them all in, and were of course exceedingly pernickety about it. Critical too. I am spared no quarter, fat or otherwise, by these daughters.
"Er, Mummy, that one isn't the right colour."
"Mummy, this pen doesn't quite fit in here."
"Oh dear, this one should be darker."
"I don't like this fabric, it's horrible isn't it?"
Yeah, thanks for that girls. The other day Hester told her father he had lots of spots, and once Isla told me my boobies looked 'tired'. Yes, one of the benefits of having children is how nice it is to be brought back down to Earth after moments of sinful pride. Just in case I was getting a bit too big for my boots or something. Although I am exceedingly clever, so there.