Sewing Gals please help - Pencil Pad Cover

Do you ever have one of those moments where you think "I'd like to make XYZ, I don't have a pattern but it can't be that hard..." well I had one last night. I want to make a pencil / drawing pad cozy / cover for a friend as a thank you gift. The pencil rolls come together so quickly so I thought this would not be too hard. (insert picture of me rolling my eyes to heaven!)

This is the finished product / tester.

Ok I didn't account for the fact that with the pencil roll you just sew the holding part in with the seams which is what makes it such a quick project. But with my new one the pencil section was smaller than the width so I ended up making the holding bits and then sewing them on (I guess next time I could do the sections all the way out to the ends and then just center the pencils?).

I initially cut the holders, put interfacing on one half and folded it over and was going to turn it under and hem it but that seemed too fiddly so then I decided to stitch and turn it as one pocket and then topstitch on and sew the dividing sections.

My problem - and I need help. If you look at the pics you can see it is all puckered (click on the pic to enlarge).
Is this because I have too much interfacing (I have it on the back on one of the large pieces - the one on the inside, and I have a half strip on all the pockets)?
Or is it that I am making the pencil holding sections too tight therefore it is pulling?
HELP PLEASE???

On this one I also forgot to put the ribbon on the left hand side seam so I could close it (DOH). I did put some on the top as I thought if there was no pad inside then it could be rolled like a regular pencil roll. But as you can see it does not roll nicely, too much fabric and interfacing I think?

Please let me know any suggestions or ideas you have to improve this project.

thanks friends ....

Oh and here is my boy ... (just because I love taking pictures of him)