Stitch and Bitch ~ In which I finally get around to doing something about all my needles all over the place and I appear no longer to have anything to bitch about !!!

Hippy Woden's Day Loverlies.

Yes I know normally this is a Tuesday thing but Himself had the pics on his phone still so I had to wait for him to wake up ... this afternoon !!! All good though the poor man had been up all night with a toothache... literally all night... I got up as he was going to bed exhausted. Anywhoo have finally gotten to it, this one is a long one so be warned!

So apparently I did have a bit of a bitch after all hahaha!!!

My needlecase or etui for those of you who wish to use the proper word has been something I have wanted to make for some time. In fact the last straw was picking up a book on the coffee table and stabbing myself up 2 nails !! yes 2!!! my thumb and forefinger with needles that were loose on the table and had come up with the book.

So here we go this is how to make a very posh "etui" that will last you pretty much forever and could even turn into a bit of an heirloom.

First design your cover . Decide what size is going to be the biggest of your needles. Remember darning needles and blanket needles and all sorts of other needles that are aboiut twice as long as your average hand sewing needle.

Mine I made 10 centimetres by 7 cm on the front and back with an inch width on the spine of the "book". As I said before mine is a very elaborate one but with the amount of needles I have around the place I figured it was justified. 

Once you have designed your outside cover. Draw your design onto card I used an old packing box to cut out my pieces as i wanted to to be relatively sturdy. Cut them out and make sure they are the size you want your end needlecase to be.

Once you have done this draw your design in pencil onto your fabric you have decided to use. I used a tapestry aida I had laying around the place. 

I started with the front and which  being a book would end up being the right hand side of the design. 

Make sure that when you draw your design onto your fabric that you have plenty of fabric to turn under afterwards.

I used a hoop as well it helped as my design was going to take some time to do and I would need to keep the fabric relatively taute whilst I was doing the work on it. 

I did think at the beginning that i could do a cross stitch on this fabric ... no I was definately wrong this fabric was designed for tapestry and other embroidery not cross stitch.Hoever I tried to struggle on and all that happened was that my cotton kept snapping. I was not impressed. However once the "shrooms" were finished I thought it wise to change down to a tapestry stitch instead.

  

I did decide to add a couple of little special points onto my needles case to make it a bit more useful. For example the wire circle on the front cover is for hanging pre-cut embroidery thread or ribbons I may be using at the time.

I was always taught as a child to try and make the back of my work as neat as the front. This has good reason to it for most projects where the back is visable for example napkins and towels etc. However for the complex array of bits I did it was never going to be as pretty as the front. 

However I think I did ok and since it isn't noticeable from the front I am definately alright with that. 

Once you have finished your cover it is time to add in your card to stiffen the edges. Many needlescases don't have this feature, and it isn't really necessary but I thought it would help protect my fingers if i picked it up in a hurry. 

So here we are laying out the pieces of cover onto the back of the coverwork you have jsut completed. Be very careful to line this up properly. 

Once this is done use a thin thread of pva glue to help hold down the fabric.

It may help to cut the corners neatly so they lay flatter.

Mine wasn't quite as well centred as I thought as you can see, this i belive is more because I didn't allow enough gap between the front cover design and the beginning of the spine design. 

Everntually your cover will look something like this. 

Now you need to work on the "pages"

For this section myself i decided to make 3 "chapters" one for hand sewing needles that i use most often the second for the speciality needles and the third for special pins and odd bits and pieces with spiky bits. 

To put these together I machine embroidered the edges of the fabric to make sure they were neat and it also helped to keep  the chapters seperate as i used a different colour for each one. 

Also trim your edges to make them look much neater like this.

Remember that your pages should be double the width of the actual page as we sew them together down the middle to make double pages. 

Once you have all 3 "chapters" sewn down the middle you will start to sew them onto the inner cover fabric you have chosen for the inside of your needlecase. 

Sew them up using either hand stitching or your machine and sew them up the fabric so they are central and close together. 

Then after this you attach the inner cover fabric to the outer cover as you did before using a thin thread of glue. you can of course slip stitch around the whole thing afterwards and this is advisable as it will last longer than the glue. 

Also don't forget to sew a thin piece of ribbon to either side of the book so you can keep it closed. Once done it will look something like this.... 

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ah .. ok apparently I haven't taken a picture of the finished item. since Himself is at rehersals I will do what I can as soon as he gets home. Until then my deepest apologies. 

Oh the joys of being a muddle headed pixie.

Have a wonderful evening xox Love and Light xox

LOOK WHAT I FOUND !!!!

The Front

 The Back

 The Spine

 Inside

There you have it .. finally pics of the finished item.
I would love to see pics of yours if you make them feel free to leave a comment and link to a pic of yours

xox Love and Light xox