Rolling it up

We're visiting family in Texas and Louisiana this week, and I had several projects I needed to finish up before the trip. This one, a jewelry roll requested by my sister, was one of them.

She found several designs on Etsy that she liked, but we ended up combining a couple tutorials to get something that worked for her.

She doesn't really wear rings (other than her wedding ring), but she's got lots of small earrings and necklaces, so for the most part, I followed this tutorial from Gwenny Penny on the Creation Corner blog, but I subbed out the bottom pocket for some straps to hold down necklaces, like in this one from Blazing Mountain Creations on Etsy.

For the pockets, I used a vinyl shower curtain that I bought from Target for a different project over a year ago. The outside fabric and strap are favorites from Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow collection.

The inside is Crosshatch in Khaki from the Fruit Punch collection, a great basic "almost solid." She requested a solid for the inside so she could see the earrings better, and I figured this was close enough. :)

The Gwenny Penny tutorial was super simple and really easy to follow. I just winged it for the necklace part. First, I made a little fabric pocket to hold the necklaces down at the bottom. I basted it on to hold it in place until I secured it with the outside binding (which is cleverly made as one piece with the outside fabric). Then, I sewed down two parallel pieces of ribbon in the space above every 1/2" or so. The piece of ribbon on the bottom of the picture below is securing both the ends of the two parallel ribbons and the bottom of the second pocket.

It was also nice to get over my fear of sewing with vinyl. It wasn't too scary, especially once I remembered the trick I read somewhere of putting tissue paper between the vinyl and the sewing foot and sewing through it, then tearing it off when you're done. It went so smoothly.

It folds up nicely into thirds and then snaps shut. Hope you like it, Ness!