Tea Towel Cutlery Roll

A handy way to store and carry your cutlery, especially for picnic and camping sets. Made from a standard tea towel, it's a quick and easy project that will keep all your items stored in one place. I made mine for 8 place settings (8 x knives, forks, large spoons and small spoons), but you could modify easily for more or less as required (in fact this design could hold far more).

I had an old tea towel that I'd rarely used sitting in the linen cupboard. The fabric is sturdy enough to support the cutlery but still be flexible enough to roll. It's also garish enough that I'd never loose it!

Materials

Tea Towel
Ribbon or String
Cutlery (as a measuring aid)

In my example, the tea towel dimensions are 68cm x 47cm.

Lay your tea towel down on the right side and flip up the bottom edge so it's the same height as the cutlery. Test the top flap section to make sure it covers over the open edge, but not so far that it goes past the bottom edge. Readjust both folds as needed. Pin in place.

Before you stitch, add in your length of ribbon. I cut mine twice the length of the width of the tea towel - just make it long enough to wrap around the bundle and tie.

Fold the length of ribbon in half and insert the folded end into one of the sides about halfway down.

Stitch the left and right sides. Turn right way round. You should now have one big pocket with ribbon hanging out one side.

I'm a particularly lazy and shabby seamstress, but you should probably stitch down the seam created on the top flap when making the pocket.

Next, divide the big pocket into smaller segments that will hold each type of cutlery. I need four pockets so I've halved and quartered, and noted where each section begins and ends with pins. Straight stitch along these lines. And that's all the sewing done.

Finally, insert the cutlery and fold over the top flap.

Now roll the section furthest from the ribbon inwards so it's on top of the the next segment. Fold the whole thing again, and again finishing your roll. Use the ribbon to tie the whole bundle together.

Happy outdoor eating!