Rainbow crayon roll

When I send baby gifts, I like to include something for the older sibling(s). So, after I finished the baby jacket I posted about yesterday, I made a quilted crayon roll-up.

My inspiration for the design was rain clouds and rainbows. One side is a gray linen-cotton blend (Robert Kaufman’s Essex linen in Steel) and the other side is a strip-pieced rainbow that begins and ends with red. It ties closed with a blue grosgrain ribbon.

Using the quilt-as-you-go method that I used for the blue and yellow baby quilt, I quilted the rainbow strips onto the gray linen, with some cotton batting sandwiched in between. Then, I added the crayon pocket, stitching at even intervals to make a separate space for each crayon. Finally, I bound it using gray cotton, being careful to catch the midpoint of the ribbon in the binding at one end.

Originally, I had intended for the gray part to be on the exterior, but I realized that if I made the exterior gray and the crayon pocket gray, very little of the rainbow would show. So, before it was too late, I switched the pocket to the gray side. The rainbow side shows when it’s rolled up, and when it’s open, the crayons supply plenty of color.