Knitting Needle Holder Tutorial

I first made one of these for my friend Morgan, it was my second ever sewing project and I just hope and pray that she never shows it to me ever again as there was some dodgy sewing going on there! I guess we all have to start somewhere, this one is slightly more complex than my original one, but the finished look is beautiful, and a great way to store your needles. The size also makes it perfect for using up those bits of left over fat quarters that you bought on impulse!

This uses the foundation piecing technique shown in my recent string quilt block tutorial, the string quilt tut has instructions in slightly more detail, so it may be worth checking that out as well.

You will need

All measurements are in inches

• One 17×17 piece for your foundation fabric - I used felt because I wanted a bit of bulk, but you can use a plain cotton. Basically anything without stretch.
• One 17×17 piece of cotton for your inner fabric.
• One 17 x 7 piece of cotton for your pocket
• LOTS of strips 18 inches long by however wide you want, mine are 2 inches, the slimmer you make them the more sewing you have to do but (IMO) the cooler they look, it took 15 strips to cover my case.
• Novelty yarn or ribbon and a button for the closure.

You can also see a dark purple piece of fabric there, I was worried about the light colour of the felt showing through on the inside of the case so I used some old sheeting and sandwiched it to the back of the foundation fabric.

Instructions behind the jump, and bigger pictures are just a click away

Take your foundation fabric and lay your first strip down, sew it along the edge to keep it in place, take your second strip and place right side down on top of your first strip, angle it so that the edges don’t match and sew along the edge of the new strip with a quarter inch seam. Flip your strip over and iron it down to flatten the seam. Keep your stitching as straight as possible to avoid lumps when you fold it over. The angle of your strip will affect how the final piece comes out, I barely angled mine and I’m kicking myself for it now as you can barely notice that the strips are askew, don’t forget that the more you angle the more strips you’ll need to cover the full length of your foundation fabric.

Keep on adding strips this way until you end up with a solid piece of stripey fabric, cut off the excess strips and square up your fabric, you should be left with something that like this –>

Sew a button onto your outer fabric in the centre about one third up from the bottom. and your needle roll outer is finished!

Time to start on the inside pocket. Take your pocket fabric and fold over the long edge and top stitch to create a neat seam. Place it on top of your inner fabric with the bottom and side edges together and machine baste around the three cut edges. Start sewing the individual pockets for your needles, start an inch away from the edge to allow for the seam and then space each stitch line half an inch away from the last using your foot as a guide. If you use wider needles then obviously make this wider, you can also have a range of gaps for use if you want to store a selection of needle sizes. Remember to keep your threads on the back trimmed to avoid them tangling in the bobbin threads and jamming in your machine.

Take your ribbon or novelty yarn, fold it in half and sew it to the edge of the right side of inner fabric with the loop facing inwards, in the same line as your button, so about one third up the total height. Place your outer fabric on top of the inner, with the right sides facing, sew around with a quarter inch seam leaving a gap of a couple of inches for turning. Trim your corners and turn the right way out.

Last step! Top stitch all the way around taking care to catch the seams from your turning hole, and you’re done!

Stash your needles in your snazzy new case, fold over the top flap to keep them secure, roll and do up the button and you and your knitting needles will be ready for anything!

Feedback as always is appreciated, and feel free to comment and let us know if you made up the Knitting Needle Roll, or even better, upload a picture of your finished project to the CraftBlog Flickr Pool.