M is for make: M is for make a bedside tidy

Motivated by a towering pile of books on the end of my daughter's bed, here is a guide to making a bedside tidy to hang on the side of your bed and stash your stuff. I used a half yard of Heather Ross fabric, equally good would be Echino or Kiyohara fabric.

These measurements are intended to give you a rough guide, and you may want to tweak them to fit your bed, but my finished tidy is 50cm wide and 25cm high. Here's how you make it...

1. Cut the rectangles of fabric for the back panel and pocket panel. I added a 2cm seam allowance at the side and bottom, and a larger 4cm allowance at the top, the back panel measures 56cm x 29cm and the pocket panel is slightly smaller 54cm x 28cm.

2. On the back panel, hem the edges, on the sides and bottom, fold over the fabric onto the wrong side 1cm and iron, then fold over another 1cm and iron again.

3. Cut off the corner at the end of the hem to reduce bulk when sewing the corner. Pin in place. Starting at one side, sew the side and bottom hems.

4. Next, hem the top. This time fold under 2cm of fabric onto the wrong side, iron, then fold over another 2cm, iron, pin then sew. Your finished back panel will look something like this.

5. Next, sew the ties. I chose to use slightly shorter, wider ties with velcro rather than tie a bow, and made 3 to avoid the tidy sagging in the middle. You can use more or less depending on the length of your tidy and how much weight it will hold. Cut 3 pieces of fabric 10cm x 20cm and 3 smaller pieces 10cm x 12cm. These measurements are based on the size of the rail it will hang on with one long tie coming over the top and fixing to the shorter one on the outside of the bed.

6. Fold each tie in half lengthways (wrong sides together), iron then open up, then fold the long edge on each side in half to the middle (wrong sides together) and iron, finally fold in half again and iron. Iron a 1cm hem both short edges. Pin in place.

7. Sew along the edges, close to the edge as you can whilst sewing through both layers.

8. Next Sew the ties to the back panel. As the fabric will be quite thick due to the multiple layers, I set the tie in slightly from the side of the back panel. Sew one long tie to the right side of the back panel as close to the top and you can. Then sew the second shorter tie to the wrong side. Again because of the thickness of the fabric, I set this slightly below where the long tie had been sewn on. Sew two at each end and another pair in the middle.

9. Next stick or sew the velcro onto the correct side of the tie. You may want to hang it on the bed to make sure you put it in the right place.

10. Next hem the pocket panel. Fold under 1cm onto the wrong side on the sides and bottom and iron. Snip the corners to reduce bulk as in step 3. On the top of the panel, fold under 2cm of fabric onto the wrong side, iron, then fold over another 2cm, iron, pin then sew as close to the fold as you can.

12. Place the pocket panel on top of the back panel with the wrong sides together. Centre the panels with pocket panel inset slightly. Have the pocket panel roughly 1.5cm lower at the top than the back panel. Pin in place and sew around the side.

11. Finally sew as many pockets as you need. I chose 2 so sewed a divide up the middle of the tidy through both layers of fabric, being careful to stop at the top of the pocket and not carry up to the top of the back panel.