It is hard to believe that Annabelle will be going back to school in two short weeks. This summer just seemed to fly by! If you are anything like me, back to school means school functions, after school activities, and more to put on your planner. Now if you read this blog regularly, then you know that I love planning and lists.  I have a yearly planner that I take with me everywhere, so when I need to schedule appointments I can take it out and look it. I’ve tried using a calendar on my phone, but I am just a paper/pencil type of gal. One thing I like to do is to use different colors based on family members, or the type of activity it is. It makes it easy to see at a glance who has what going on. I made this great elastic pen holder for my blog planner last year, but I needed something different this time around.  I wanted easy way to keep all of my pens and planner together, but I didn’t want to have elastic wrapped around my planner. So I whipped up this planner/pen holder.
This is a relatively simple project, which you should be able to do in two hours, tops. I have been loving having everything together, so that I no longer have to dig around to find the pen I am looking for.
Materials
-Main Fabric (I used a duck fabric for a little more stability)
-Lining Fabric
-Velcro
From the main fabric you need three peices:
front: 10″ X 16″
planner pocket: 6″ X 8.5″
pen holder: 2″ X 11.5″
From the lining fabric you need one piece
inside piece: 10″ X 16″
To start fold over the top of the pocket piece over about .25″. Do the same to the right side. Iron both so they lay flat
Then run on edge stitch on the top.
Fold your pen holder piece in half, and sew across the bottom and one of the short sides, leaving the other short side open so you can turn it.
Turn it out, an then run an edge stitch on both long sides.
Next up, mark the halfway point on your lining piece.
Match the finished edge of the pocket with that mark, and sew the finished side, bottom, and raw edge onto the lining. Be sure to leave the top open, that’s where your calendar or planner will go. I sewed where the pins are.
Now the next part is a little trick, but I hope with the pictures and explanations I can do it. Take your pen holder piece and make marks 1.25″ apart. Then in the center of your lining piece make marks about .75″ from the pocket across to the raw edge. The orange marks are the 1.25″ marks.
Sew down the short finished edge of the pen strip next to the pocket. You are going to match up each mark on the pen piece with a mark on the lining. This will give you a little loop to put your pens in. If you don’t do this, then you won’t be able to slide your pens in. Trust me. #beentheredonethat
Hopefully you can see that I’m matching the white mark on the pen holder piece to the orange mark on the liner. Continue matching across.
So now you have a space for you planner, and nice little places to put your pens.
The next step is easy. Take your main fabric, and match it, right sides together (the right side of the lining piece is the one with the pocket and pen holder), to your lining piece.
Sew around leaving a place to turn out.
Turn it out, and edge stitch around to close up the hole where you turned it out, and you are done!
Admire your handiwork!
It was so nice to get back into sewing. We packed my sewing machine away when we put our house on the market and I’ve been itching to get back to it. Although my craft room is a disaster (if you watched my IG live a few days ago, you may have seen it), I’m excited to use it! I went to JoAnn’s on Friday and bought some un-needed Halloween fabric, and I’m hoping to start working on some fun dresses for the girls. Be sure to stay tuned!
If you like this, you can check out some of my other DIY projects here.