Today we have a fun project, our handy flip fold sewing caddy pattern. This organizer holds all of your tools and notions in a neat and compact little kit. It’s great to toss in your bag for sewing class, have one in the car just in case, or pop it in your suitcase when you travel. This also makes a great gift for a quilter, and it’s fat quarter friendly!
(The following contains affiliate links, see our full disclosure here: disclosure statement)
✿ This pattern also works with The Fabric Hut’s exclusive Fat Fifths! Check them out here: Fat Fifths Bundles
✿ Our favorite fat quarter bundles come from Connecting Threads. Find your new favorite here: Precut Bundles
✿ Amazon has lots of affordable options. We have tested very inexpensive fabrics and still gotten great results: Fat Quarter Bundles
Video transcript:
Hi everyone I’m Paulette Morrissey from Tulip Square and this week I’m going to show you how to make one of our popular patterns it’s called the flip fold sewing caddy and it looks like this compact little thing and you open it up and it’s got little compartments for all kinds of sewing gadgets we’ve got room for like a little notepad and a pen you’ve got parts to put four little bobbins of thread you’ve got a little pocket here for some snaps or something small you’ve got another pocket back here you’ve got room for needles and pins some of your sewing notions over here and these little strips are for your little clips and there’s a pocket behind them and it all folds up compactly to be about 5 in square so anyway I’m going to show you how to make this it is pattern number 603 if you’d like to follow along and you’re going to head over to the sewing machine and make it let’s go
to make the flip fold sewing caddy you’re going to need what really works is two fat quarters and I’m using these two and I’ve got batting in between and these pieces are cut to 13×15 I believe all the dimensions and everything are in the pattern which you can download at the end of the video for now we’re just going to take the two large pieces with a piece of batting between them and I’m just going to do some real simple quilting on them and what I’m going to do is just a real simple grid the lines just going straight across and I like to use a walking foot for that just because it doesn’t pull on the fabric so much okay you can see I’ve got a real quick grid design sewn on here this will be my outside and I’m going to go cut the pieces as it mentions in the pattern and I’ll be right back all right now we’ve got all the pieces cut prepped and ready to go we’ll set the two bigger pieces aside and we’ve got these two little pocket pieces I’m going to take the small binding strips that have already been cut to length and pressed in half like so and I’m going to sew them to the wrong side of the pocket I want this to be the right side of the pocket after you’ve sewn them along here we’re going to turn this to the opposite side and you’re going to stitch down real close to this edge here now we’re going to take these two small pieces of binding that are just a little bit wider than the other two that were for the pockets and I’m going to sew them right sides together along this long edge now you need to turn these right side out and I’m going to go press these so that that seam is in the center like this alrighty now we’ve got those all pressed those aside set the pockets aside and then you’ve got a couple little pieces of fabric we’re going to take a little square I’m just going to fold it in half and give it a little bit of a press now you’ve got one other unquilted piece this one was unquilted and you got a larger quilted be unquilted piece I’m going to put these together right sides together I’m going to sew the two side seams so you got a side seam a folded bottom and another side seam so I think we’ve got all our little pieces finished and ready to go now lots of little parts but now you’ve got two quilted sections and one is an inch wider than the other one they’re both the same length but one is an inch wider so we’re going to take the narrower one of the two I’m going to use this for the outside of my case and this for my inside so on the inside I’m going to mark very lightly I’m going to mark four and a half inches in from each end I’m just going to go over here and go four and a half here and down here then on this one which is going to be the outside of your case on the outside of it which is the white side I’m going to mark in 5 inches from each end all right I’m going to work on the small one first okay starting at one end on this is the inside of the case and you can see the little line I made at four and a half inches I’m going to take this little flap I just sewed and the unfinished end right here I’m going to put it just past that just a little bit past it so it can get caught in a seam maybe less than a quarter of an inch and I’m going to make sure it’s centered from side to side and then I’m going to take this little piece this little square that all we did was sew it in half with no stitching I’m going to take that piece and with the same open end I’m going to line it right up on top of that other one like so but those are all right in line just like that and I’m going to pin those in place this way I can move this little flap right like so those are pinned right where they go then I’m going to take this little flap and I’m going to get it out of my way for just a minute think I’ll take another pin and pin it out of the way okay I folded that back so I’ve got two of these little ponytail bands going to take one and I’m going to stitch it about 2 inches from this edge and kind of centered at the top so you can either do this by machine or by hand I’m just going to find it’s a lot easier just to put a couple stitches in it by hand I’m going to start by securing a little knot and then I’m going to make a loop and in that loop I’m going to stick ponytail band and I can adjust the size of the two loops before I pull it real tight like that and then I’m going to just secure that down with a few stitches and I’m not going all the way through to the other side so if you sew this on by machine you will be going through the other side and go over about an inch and I’m going to do the same thing here I’m going to make a little loop shove this through the little loop then I’m going to stitch it in place with a few good strong stitches and I just like to go you know five or six times you want it nice and snug I don’t want these going anywhere okay now I’m just going to make sure the bobbin the loops are fairly centered and I’m going to start up here tie a bit of a knot I’m just going to tack this down with a couple stitches just like so it can’t move anywhere now that we’ve got that done we’re going to take one of our pieces of felt I’m going to fold it in half they’re both the same size and then flip this around remember where we pinned these down I’m going to have to move these pins I guess I should put them this way okay now you see where you’ve got your raw edges from these two pieces I’m going to fold this felt in half and I’m going to put the edge of it right so they overlap about a quarter of an inch and then I’m going to stitch right across this edge here now you’ve got a couple little pieces of cardboard you cut out take the smaller piece of cardboard and just tuck it under this felt this is just cardstock just like so I think I cut that a little bit smaller and you may have to adjust this a little bit this looks like because I need to have enough space past it that I can sew so I’m just going to cut a little bit more of it off maybe a 16th of an inch now I’m going to tuck it under there keeping it even on both sides so put that down now on this next piece of felt I put this here and I’m going to stitch right across here so I’m going through all three layers of felt and just missing that cardboard I just put in there but now that you’ve got this sewn in place I’m going to stitch down on top of it okay then under here I’m going to take the larger piece of scrap cardboard and just tuck it right up to there and then I cut up like five or six pieces of just scrap felt all of them the size of this cardboard or smaller and progressively smaller so that I’ve got this little stack here I’m just going to kind of arrange them that they’re gradually getting smaller on the top kind of this is going to be your pin cushion I’ve got them all tucked in there and I’m going to bring this down and then I’m going to fold this edge under so it’s a little bit past that cardboard and then I’m going to go stitch this down and it ends up to be stitched right on that line that I made earlier now right here I’m going to take a piece of quarter inch elastic I’m going to take a piece about let’s say 6 inches long might not even need that much right about in the middle somewhere and put it down right along the edge I’m just going to go back and forth a little bit okay and then I’m going to do go straight down figure out what is straight down from there and I’m going to stitch the other end I’m going to keep it as straight as possible it’s not perfect that’s pretty close I think it’s good stitch it the same way now what you’re going to do and you’re going to put a couple of extra stitches in here so you’re making yourself several loops to hold things so you can make like one really big loop and two little loops or three little loops whatever you want I’m just going to make several little loops so I’m just going to push it up like that you can vary these trying to keep them straight across you’re a little bit and I’m going to push the elastic up a little bit make another one do that again go a little bit further down make another loop now I’m going to set this one aside for now and I’m going to bring the other other piece of the tote we’re going to start with you have two pockets one is five and a half inches wide and one is 5 inches so we need the 5 inch pocket right now and you’re going to take one of these little strips that you sewed the seam down the back and you’re going to lay it down just about a quarter of an inch above the bottom edge of the pocket and then you’re going to lay the other one just above that so there’s just a little bit of a sliver of the pocket showing just like so that we’re going to stitch these to the edge of the pocket but staying close to the edge so this will be caught up in your quarter inch seam later on so you don’t want this stitch visible so I’m going to go pretty close to the edge and I’m just securing the edges in place now I’m going to sew really close to the bottom edge of each one of these little you just got these little straps here gonna sew really close to the bottom edge of each now just to keep things straight I’m going to pin this pocket right here so the bottom edge is even with the bottom of the case and the sides are are even with the sides I’m just going to pin that in place so it doesn’t go anywhere okay now we’re going to swing around to the other end of the base and we’re going to take this little pocket and I’m going to put it right here this is going to I’m going to sew a couple of lines in here just to make a couple more pockets just pin that down now we’re going to sew binding around the edges of these two pieces and we’re going to sew this the same way I sew binding on anything so in case you don’t remember I will refresh your mind I’m going to leave a tail of about 4 or 5 inches I’m going to start sewing just about at the bottom of this this pocket stopping about a quarter of an inch before I get to the end and take it away from the sewing machine cut the thread and then I’m going to take this and I’m going to fold it up so the binding so this edge of the binding and this edge of the case are going to be parallel and even then I’d like to take a ruler just lay it up here along this edge we just did and fold this down to get a really perfect corner pull that out and then I’m going to sew down to the next corner doing the same thing on each corner where I stop a quarter of an inch before the corner cut the thread bring the binding up and around so it’s parallel and even I like to lay the ruler right there nice and even fold this over it’s nice and even with this line perfectly even and then pull this out and sew the next seam and go all the way around until you get to your last corner and I’ll show you how we finish off the last corners okay now when you get to the last corner you do the same thing you did before but you only sew it about 2 inches and then stop okay now you got this wide open spot here you can connect the two ends so what I do is I cut a piece off and making sure that it’s just a scrap piece open it out and I lay it at about where I think is the middle and it’s not critical at all I’ll just lay it here I am going to take my first piece my first end and I’m going to cut this one even with this edge of that little piece I just put in I was going to get cut off right here nice and straight it has to be that one’s cut off right there even though this edge and then I’m going to take my second end and bring it down and cut it off even the other edge make sure you’re only cutting this one layer I’m going to cut a tiny bit off okay now you’ve got these two pieces you don’t need this anymore that was just for accuracy now you’ve got these two ends if you fold this whole thing in half you can lay these two pieces and you’re going to stitch them together diagonally that’s how you would finish binding when you’re binding a runner or a placemat or a quilt it’s the same process just a little tinier just going from point to point it’ll be pretty accurate before you cut it you can test it and lay it down and make sure that it fits there but it should if you measured it halfway decent and I’m going to cut this off leaving a quarter of an inch seam allowance finger press this little seam open nice and flat then you can lay this back down fold that back down now you can finish that seam I can remove the pins holding all the pieces in and then I’m going to turn the binding to the right side and stitch it down all the way around okay when you get close to the corner stop and take your thumb and just push this corner up like so just like that then you get sew a little bit further take the next edge fold it up and tuck that first side in until you get a nice mitered corner turn then go around the whole thing like that just continue all the way around you get back to the beginning and then I just overlapped the first couple stitches by maybe a quarter half an inch just for like the same as back tacking and then you go ahead and put the binding on and finish the other half the same way and we’re getting close to done okay now you’ve got all these pieces finished to this point now what you’re going to do is take the piece that’s slightly bigger this one’s a little wider than this one and mark again where I put I have the little marks on the outside where I put them so I just put pins in to make sure I’m on the right side and then on this one I’m going to put them at the same marks I made earlier and you can double check these get them as close as possible and you can double check them by folding everything and making sure they’re all fairly centered okay so when you get them where you want them like this going to do is you’re going to sew them together along the outside edge of the top binding right along this outside edge here and right along this outside edge here so when I get there and out of there so okay now you can see I’ve got both edges securely stitched in place and this also stitched down this pocket edge so you’ve got your little pocket here it also sealed this where we’ve got everything everything is all stitched in place and now you’re going to flip the whole thing over and what you’re going to do sew just on one of these edges so that the other end gives you a nice little pocket just an extra little pocket that you might need so I’m just going to stitch along one of these now all we have to do is put the closure on and this will get folded up this way this will get folded up this way this will get folded up this way and this will get folded up this way so what I like to do and it’s up to you which of these two you want on top or not but the shorter two the narrower two get folded in first so this little pocket one gets folded in first and the elastic ones get folded in and then these two whichever order you want I kind of like this one first and this one second it goes like so like so so what you’re going to do and I’ll tell you why I use these I use another one of those ponytail bands and I tack it down over here and then I put two layers of buttons one on top of the other wrap it around and do this because then as it gets fuller it’s got room to expand if you put a snap on here or something like that there’s no extra room for it to expand when you start filling it up the elastic you can keep filling up and filling up until this thing is way back here so that’s what I like to do so I’m just going to hand stitch this little loop down and I like to just fiddle around with it to see exactly where I want it but I think I want it right here right there so I’m just going to put a pin right where I want it and there are one of two ways you can do this you can either just stitch it down right there or you can stitch it down and put a button on it to cover it up that’s up to you I think I’m not going to cover it up I’m just going to stitch it down I’m not going all the way through to the inside I’m just going through to the batting and the outside we’ll just go to the other side and saw the button on once again I’m going to fold this back up the way I want it this one up and this one down and I see if I put a button right about here that’ll be good so it’s snug enough now there’s still plenty for room for to move I’m going to put the button right there but this one is inside a pocket that was a brilliant move wasn’t it don’t sew your pocket shut don’t sew through the pocket I like to put another button underneath the main button just so it raises up the main button a little bit and you have more room for your ponytail loop nick down onto there nick is not a word really that is finished this like this that is the flip fold sewing case it is pattern number 603 okay so now you know how to make the flip fold sewing caddy it’s very handy and I’m just going to show you I loaded this one up so you can have an idea all the different things you can fit in it see it holds quite a bit of things and I don’t really have it completely filled but it does hold a lot it’s very handy for by your sewing machine it’s good for traveling if you need to make some kind of repairs and mends and fix hems and sew buttons on and all kinds of stuff like that also a nice gift for people who do sewing or crocheting or knitting and they want a little caddy to keep all their notions in it’s very handy for all that so if you’re interested in the pattern you’ll see a link right up here should be right up there where you can download the link the pattern in a link and if you like this video please hit the like button hit the Subscribe button and if you hit the little bell you’ll be notified when we put up a new video which is every Saturday a new video goes up where we show you how to make one of our patterns or a quilt block or whatever whatever we can think of so we hope you like the video and we hope you have a good day and we’ll see you next time bye-bye