Learn how to make a sewing needle case that can hold all of your hand sewing needles! Make a second needle case for your sewing machine needles!
A perfect project to use up scraps of fabric, with a small piece of felted wool. I prefer real wool felt to the polyester felt that you can buy at craft shops, as the polyester can dull your needles faster and the lanolin in the wool helps keep your needles sharp.
The pattern from Crafty Lady Lindsay, modified a little, made a cute needle case. You can make a needle case any size or shape. The basis of is an outside fabric that is generally stabilized with a little batting or interfacing. I prefer cotton batting. When I’m working on a stitching project, I like to just put my needle in the top of the needle case while threading or quick interruptions to my stitching so I remember which needle I was using.
I printed the pattern and picked out some fabrics. I did make this twice, so some images show different fabric choices. Here is the main fabric, some felt and light weight batting cut out from the patterns.
I made this twice. Once with light weight batting and once with interfacing. I preferred the interfacing, as it gave the fabric a little stability, but not the bulk of the batting. The batting made it very difficult to turn after sewing.
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Take the print fabric that is the outer needle case and sew all of the way around, right sides together. Yes, sew all of the way around.
The original directions suggest leaving a small opening to turn the fabric inside out, but the small opening distorted and stretched the fabric. I had to rip out a long edge to turn. Then, I needed to try to press it and get it back in shape to topstitch. I prefer my method of sewing all of the edges.
Clip the inside corners up to the V in your stitching. This will make for a nice edge when we do turn the fabric right side out.
Fold the needle case with WRONG sides out like you will when it is finished. Press it lightly so you can see the fold lines. We’ll be sewing the wool felt along those fold lines in a bit.
Go to your work table and pull the two sides apart, so you can get in to cut only what will be the INSIDE of the needle case.
Carefully snip with sharp scissors along one of the fold lines and cut a hole big enough to easily turn the needle case inside out, about 2 to 2-1/2 inches. Make sure the hole is in the middle of the needle case, so it will be covered when we sew the felt on top. Turn the needle case right side out, making sure the corners are all turned nicely using a corner turner or finger pressing.
Take a needle and thread and close the opening with a whip stitch. This will be covered with the felt.
Press the needle case with a hot iron to make sure all of the curves are nice and crisp.
Lay the felt on the needle case and draw your sewing lines with a piece of chalk or other fabric marker that can be removed. Sew along those marked lines. I used a contrasting thread to make it a bit more interesting.
Top stitch all around the needle case. I used my 1/4″ quilting foot to make sure it was nice and even all of the way around.
Take the needle case to your ironing board. Fold it up and give it a good long steam press to make sure those folds are in good.
Now, just to add a closure. I added a KAMSnap, but you could use velcro, a regular snap or a button – whatever you’d like!
These are pretty quick little projects. Make them in whatever color you’d like for the special stitcher in your life, or just for yourself!
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