Pencil Bandolier

A mess in my handbag is a kid of diagnosis. When my children came, a handbag became a huge diaper bag where my things were mostly replaced by wipes, bottles, cookies and biting toys and most of the time I couldn’t even find a pen. I could empty the whole bag and still I wouldn’t find any. However, if I leave the bag unattended at home and my kids open and grab into it, a pen is usually the first thing they find. The place where I need to find my pens, pencils and markers the most is our choir’s rehearsals. We write something into the scores all the time, therefore I need to have a pencil at my fingertips.

This is a fast project which you can finish in under 30 minutes.

This bandolier is for the A4 format (horizontally) or A5 (vertically). You’ll need:

- 45 cm of the base elastic band

- 41 cm of the upper elastic band

- Matching thread

- scissors

Sew the upper elastic to the base elastic 5 cm from the edge of the base elastic.

Stitch up the edge of the upper elastic so it doesn’t split. Then sew the long sides of the bands together on both sides until the point where you want the first loop for a pen to be.

It’s up to you where the loops start, i start with them at about 13 to 16 cm from the edge of the upper elastic. First stitch both elastics vertically where you see the green pin.

Now comes the most complicated part – creating the loops so they are regular and the same size.

There are more ways to do this, the beginners way would be to hold a pen between the elastics and marking the places you want the loop to end. That’s where you stitch the elastics together vertically again. I prefer to mark with one pin the length of the upper elastic (the length I need for the loop) and with another pin on the base elastic where I want the loop to be closed up. Then I align both pins and stitch the place together. Then I measure the distance between the loops and again stitch the elastics together, that’s where the new loop starts. I repeat the steps as many times as is the number of loops I want the bandolier to have. Once you’re finished with the loops, stitch the remaining part of the upper and base elastic together on both sides as in the beginning and don’t forget to stitch up the end of the upper one.

The last step is to overlap 1 cm of the edges of the base elastic and stitch them together.

Now all that’s left is to put the bandolier on and have the pens and pencils always where you need them.

This tutorial was created thanks to our choir Gloria Brunensis, which is why I’d like to invite you to visit our Facebook fanpage.