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.... 

....

....

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 

Monday Catch Up ~ Oh the joys of agoraphobia and the lessons to be learned

Hippy Moon Day Loverlies !!!

I do hope this weekend has treated you kindly. This weekend for me has been all sorts of "fun and games" and not in a "tag your it" kinda way.

We have only moved in properly as of Wednesday last week. For the week and a half before that Himself has been busily popping our stuff over on a parcel truck and running it round the corner!!! Bless him he truly is my hero. The Saturday we were due to start moving I lost the plot. The lack of routine and complete chaos I found myself surrounded by turned me into a puddle, so my hero packed up our brekky things and did the first trip to the new house at 7am on that Saturday morning with me in my pj's trotting alongside him. (Well hobbling but let's not split hairs).

From that moment I stayed in our new home and unpacked boxes and crates as they came in the door. It was fabbytastic and what made it better was I had the wonderful sounds of Serpentyne playing on the stereo. I have to admit at this point I think I might not have been as calm without thier beautiful music. It just struck a cord with me and brought me back to a place I haven't been in a very long time. A place of comfort and bliss. This lasted about a week ... and then the lads helped Himself bring a heap of stuff over in the car....

... and I was surrounded... I had visions in my head of walking through the living room and the boxes tumbling over in a wave ... and that for me was pretty much a breaking point. I fled from the room once the lads had left and hid in bed under the blankey. I wasn't coming out for anyone and since I wasn't allowed to pick anything up I felt worse because Himself was working his poor ickle butt off carrying our entire life together down 3 flights of stairs by the box load.

Sometimes I know my behaviour is childish and ridiculous, the worst part is I annoy the heck outta myself because I do it but I have no way at that point of controlling it and off I go into a downward spiral of a vicious circle that makes things worse until I can either find a way out of the house or find something to take my attention like a toddler really only a heck of a lot more of a heffalump to try and calm down.

The life of an Agoraphobic is a nightmare. It is very difficult for many people to understand. Some of us are lucky enough to have families and loved ones who do, but saying that not even some family members tend to always understand and to be honest how could they ???

When we find a focus we are amazing! we truly are we can do anything at all (mostly indoors) but truly anything at all because our focus on one thing is so great and undistracted. If however things don't go the way we think they should and if we think for any reason that people are going to be looking down on us because of what has happened whether it be in our control or not we fall to pieces. I don't mean a few minutes of tears I mean .. we drop ... we can drop lower than a Bi-Polar drop and it's scary for everyone all around. We even find ways to try and push those closest to us away and will do so to the a breaking point in our relationships. Just so no-one can find us. Luckily for some of us our partners are onto us and won't let us do it. In fact Himself is quite capable of coming up to me and saying "it won't work, you're stuck with me" when I have tried.

I am not writing this to make people feel sorry for me or even agoraphobics in general. What I am writing this for is to give some of you out there a little insight into our world. Our world is one full of ups and downs and sometimes not just taking things a day at a time but moment by moment. Every step out of bed is a win. Every step up the hallway is a win. Making a cuppa without someone coming with you to the kitchen is a win. Stepping outside the house is a MASSIVE win and going anywhere in the car or on public transport or even helping out in the local charity shop for a couple of hours once a week is one of the biggest wins there is.

The more we do the better we get. However it can take something quite small to set us right back at square one. The joy of it is it doesn't take as long to come back again out of it as it did the last time or the time before that.

I look forward to the day I know that I have had 10 days of bliss like the week I have a couple of weeks ago. It isn't far off I know that ... but it will take time. Patience is not one of my best virtues especially with myself. I am finding though I am learning to be kinder to myself, learning to accept me for how I am and learning to see the wins each and every one of them.

One of the biggest things I am learning is :~

Don't sweat the small stuff. 

When you first learn this you make a realisation once you put it into practice and that is :~

It's all small stuff

Truer words were never spoken. It's just learning that and keeping it close and putting it into practice when the bad moments hit. In the end we are doing the best we can. 

Having something to take our mind away from what it is that has set us off is important. I have started painting murals on our walls in the hallway. I have also taken up reading again the sort of reading that doesn't teach you anything it's just there to keep you occupied and maybe take you away from things for a while. 

The thing I am most proud of is letting people into my space, to be able to do this I had to be able to control the situation. This means I have now set up 3 days of craft groups at Pixies Rest.

This means I have to make sure that everything is ready for the days. Even if no-one shows not at the beginning it doesn't matter. It means I am more ready the next time, and the next time and the next.

Anyways one last thing ... learn to laugh at yourself, some of the situations we find ourselves in are ridiculous learn to see it for it's funny side.

Anywhooo that's enough from me tonight my head has started to pound a bit and I think it's time for me to go make some din dins so when Himself gets home he can eat.

Have a fabbytastic rest of your evening

xox Love and Light xox  

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