Needle Keep

I hope you’re having a great day so far because I am! The weather is mild and the windows are open letting a light breeze blow away the stagnant winter indoor air.  It smells so good!

Today I am going to show you how I made my Needle Keep:

First I started with a piece of medium interfacing approximately 7” x 3.5”

(I cut three of each because I plan to make more later)

You will also want to cut another piece slightly smaller if you want more than one “page” to store your sewing needles on. 

 I then took one of the fabric napkins I had bought several years ago for embroidering but never found the time.  The tag shows it is 55% cotton and 45% polyester

 I cut the hems off two sides

 Then I cut a piece roughly the same size as my interfacing

 I used my pinking shears (which I found last week while reorganizing some of my craft supplies lol I had forgotten I had them!) and I trimmed of the very edge of both the napkin fabric and the interfacing (both pieces since I’m making a 4 “page” needle keep.

 I then dug through my vintage lace and pulled out pieces I thought would look good together.

 I started pinning the pieces onto the outside of the napkin fabric and kept rearranging until I was happy with how they overlapped each other.

 Here are my two pieces of interfacing

 I took ribbon and wrapped it around the middle of the smaller piece of interfacing and overlapped them on the backside right in the middle where the “binding” stitches of the keep will be.

I stitched them down the center of the ribbon

 Then I took another piece of ribbon and sewed it to the right side of the larger piece of interfacing making sure the ends are long enough to tie in a bow.

 Here are the two pieces of interfacing with the ribbon attached and pinned in their centers where the binding stitches will go.

 I then used my sewing machine and stitched the lace into place on the napkin fabric except for the outside edges. I will get to that in the next step

 I then placed the back of my larger piece of interfacing onto the back of the cover and sewed all around the edges paying close attention to ensure I caught the outside edges of the lace and at the same time caught the edges of the interfacing.

 I then marked the center on both pieces and lined them up and pinned them together. 

I then stitched down the center but not to the very edge.

 I made sure to reinforce the tying ribbon at both edges.

This is the only place I used the machine back stitching to secure the ends of the thread.

See my note below at the end of the tutorial.

 Here is the front and back before adding embellishments

 Here is my handy dandy jar of pre-made satin roses.

 Here is the whole piece after adding embellishments

 Here is the inside of the finished piece with one lonely needle inside

 And here are the front and back pictures of the finished Needle Keep!

 I may have overdone the embellishments lol  It looks more like something for a bride than for a seamstress! ROFL But I love lace, ribbons, pearls and flowers.

I wanted to add a note to let you know that I only "back-stitched" on the ribbon ties in this project.  All other stitching began and ended with hand tied thread so that the back stitching wouldn't show. I pulled both threads to the back side of the piece and triple knotted them and sniped off the ends. 

And HERE is a link to the eBay auction if you’re interested.

That’s it for today!

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Crafting!