Easy to make DIY needle case. A rant and I am not buying or collecting any more patterns!

Before I even started to consider sewing and blogging or even just sewing at all I made this needle case. It no longer look perfect and new because it is used and in use in my photos. I have not set this up just taken photos as it really is. It is used all of the time so I thought I would tell you about this and how this tiny case got me back into sewing.

This is a very easy, but very practical sewing project. It is also particularly good if you want to make something and have very little fabric and have not sewn ever before or not for ages as was the position I was in when I made this. I had lost my confidence completely but actually needed this to sort out my needles.

It is a great beginners sewing project in fact and if you need somewhere to begin and want to go on to sewing your own clothing this little case will be very useful to you in the future as well as giving you something to sew now. Achieving a small item like this was very encouraging for me. I needed it to be sure, but I really also needed the confidence to get sewing.

It all began in January 2009 when I was out of work, had through necessity decided to make my soap making into a business ( it never made money really and still exists as a hobby business now). I spent seral days hacking appart and upcycling my existing clothing nd a friend was so impressed she gave me some of her unworn old clothes as well. Then I started to browse free patterns on the internet.  It was then back in 2009 I first found Burda. I had not sewn anything for about 20 years. It was then that I began to collect patterns. What I should have done right then was download all the then free patterns on burdastyle.com because nowadays you have to pay for them. My pattern collection has now grown to ridiculous proportions so that it is difficult to house it. I have September onwards from 2013, all the 2014,  all the 2015 Burda Magazines, all but one of the 2016  when I had a subscription. I also have several from 2009, 2010 and 2011 mostly bought from Ebay as second hand and a small number of odd issues from the 1980s and 1990s as well as 3 Patrones, a Neu Mode and a couple of other unusual titles all in other languages than english. Then there are my paper pattern collection. I have no idea how many patterns I have and to be honest I am scared to count and admit how much money I have "wasted" on them. Many are so similar I cannot justfy what I have spent. I have tried to be more discerning in the last couple of years but when you need to buy a large ( as in large!) plastic storage box and you still cannot solve the problem of storage then it has to be time to stop. And this is not counting any of my free and paid for downloads. Mostly free but lots of data storage taken up here. A friend told me recently I am addicted to data. But its all patterns. Not all sewing but knitting and crochet too and I cannot crochet! So I have enough patterns that if I never made anything twice and made something every week I could never make them all in the rest of my life. And I am not someone who goes into collecting stuff. Or not till now. I always have clear out and get rid of things. It seems I have found my area of "collecting". It has to stop. Where I am not yet going to stop stashing fabric like many other sewists - you can read the current conversation on this here:

http://sozowhatdoyouknow.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/busting-my-stash-no-really-i-mean-it.html

I am going to stop stashing patterns.

Well there is definitely something there to think about from the planet point of view as well as space and money etc when it comes to stashing fabric. For me though I think it is patterns are my real problem. Yes I have a decent sized fabric stash by any standards but if I did not do this I could rarely afford to sew when I want to, so I am not currently making any decisions to lose my fabric stash or even to reduce what I buy, which really is not that much yearly.  I do not waste resources anywhere near as much with fabric stashing as I am with my pattern obsession - and stashing!

So I am really going to say enough is enough.

I AM NOT BUYING ANY MORE PATTERNS!

That's my pledge to planet earth

Fabric: well I need that at the moment else my patterns really will be a waste of money and paper, and data. It is now time to just MAKE! For me anyway.

I used to sew a lot in my youth when I was poor and in and out of work in the 1980s recession. As times got better I gave up sewing. Boy! do I wish I had had these patterns then! But then, in my 20s and early 30s,  I was thinking life was better if I could have RTW fashion clothes.

In the 1980s I just did not have enough cash to actually buy clothing so I began making things from fabric such as curtains bought from charity shops into jeans. Without patterns too. But then when you have a real need you become very inventive. I got so good at it I actually sold some jackets and jeans to friends. They were all made to fit specific people ( and with no pattern other than their existing clothing) so not really in any particular size. I started a mini local fashion in Coventry, UK for jackets made from old velvet and brocade curtains and even to this day I love those fabrics especially when made into "denim jackets". I also made baseball caps from these fabrics - well it was the 1990s by then! This is where I now need to get back to.

I have had an obsession with buying patterns for several years but I do not need half of them because if I can get to be good at this I should be able to copy just about any high street clothing which is exactly where I began to sew from. I never used to use bought patterns because if I wasted money on a  pattern then I could not also afford the fabric to make whatever it was I wanted. I am talking about a time here when it was difficult to eat every day. I really was that poor and so were many of my friends.  So to make clothing, I used whatever was free or cheap. We all lived in rented landlord houses and often we found old curtains hidden in the under the stairs cupboard where the electric meter was kept. They were usually 1960s and 1970s horrendous designs but washed and made into jeans and combats could be very stylish in a world where everyone was unemployed. Of course there was another very useful side effect from this way of sewing - I usually had loads of spare fabric and if I cocked it up and trashed it, it cost nothing other than the thread to sew with and if I made it work it was considered a huge success.

I started to sew again around 2010. I had been downloading free patterns for a year by then and just thinking about sewing.  Then I made this dress. It was not very wearable other than for a festival. I like this rather nice dress which was made from what was stashed in my wardrobe - a small piece of yellow velvet bought from a second hand shop, scarves and some second hand sari fabric for a lining. But I could not wear this dress for every day life. It simply would not be acceptable for example at work in an office. This is why I am not getting rid of my fabric stash. I need it else all my makes will end up unwearable although quite beautiful in their own way. I want to make real everyday clothing as well as a few quirky bits and pieces.

This time around sewing was more of a challenge. It took probably 2 years before I seriously started to sew despite suddenly being out of work and living in relative poverty. Having said that I never went without food, electric or anything really but relative to when I was working I felt poor. I also had a garden and grew veg so really I was relatively well off. I just had no cash to spend at all. As in really nothing spare after bills.  You can get by quite well in this kind of world. Its a different kind of poverty to what I suffered in the 1980s though and is very difficult to describe to people who never lived through that period.  

Interestingly the first thing I made in 2009/2010 was the needle case, shown at the top of this post and below there are more photos, from some old clothes I no longer wore. Good move that. It came about due to my having collected loads of separate sets of hand sewing needles. It seemed that for the last 20 years or so I have been buying them every time I lost a button or needed to repair my RTW clothing and I suddenly realised they seemed to be stashed all over the house in odd corners and drawers. I needed to collect them all together to rationalise them and to make them easy to locate when I actually need to sew something. So I made this needle case which still serves me well.

Its a very good needle case, I use it at least once a fortnight, maybe most weeks, and is really just 4 rectangles.

One for the outside, one for the lining and two rectangles of felt all sewn into a "book".

The finished article measures 22cm x 14 cm but really can be made in absolutely any size depending on whatever fabric scraps you have. The outside is made from a  second hand tiger stripe skirt. The outer fabric is a cross between fur fabric/velvet. Originally cos me about £3 from a charity shop and then sat in my wardrobe for about 10 years. I always wanted one like that when I was a teen but unfortunately by the time I owned it it really did not fit who I had grown up into. So there it sat. For years! Loved, wanted but never worn.

The inside fabric is  small piece a friend salvaged from a skip. A curtain shop had thrown out hundreds of samples. I had previously made it into a small tablecloth for a table we had made from a reel of wire which was left for collection outside my block of flats by the city council electrical technicians.

I wish I had a picture of my tables. I had 4 of them in different sizes. All were made from dumped electric wiring reels and all were sanded, dyed black ash ( it was the 1990s!) and then either beeswaxed (which was very hard work but well worth it for the shine) or varnished. They were something else and ranged in size from side tables to one large one we used as a dining table for Christmas Dinner with our friends. I have since seen similar ideas on the internet but there was no internet then. This was simply necessity since we had no money and no furniture and they were there asking for me to grab them. Anyway I have no photos of them. I made a table cloth for each one and this inner fabric is what is left of one of the smaller table cloths for these tables. 

To make this: first I cut the rectangles one for the outside, one for the inside. If you want it the same size as mine you will need to cut 22cm  + seam allowance x 14 cm + seam allowance so add about 1.5cm on because you can always trim off any excess before you turn it the right side out. Place right sides together and sew all the way around but leaving a  small gap to turn right side out. Cut a diagonal off each corner close tot he stitching but not cutting he stitches to make it easier to get a decent corner after it has been turned. Turn right side out being sure to pull the corners out as must as you can and pin all the way round then top stitch. This closes the small gap you left as well. 

Cut your rectangles of felt - just a little smaller than your case. Mine are not square but still work fine. Then sew two rectangles of felt ( warning if you are vegan - I do not think the felt is. I am pretty sure it is wool. Normally I do try to be a good vegan but in the end this bit of felt has been around for probably 25 years and I inherited it then so I think its fair dos to use this rather than throw it away. The planet matters too. Felt works well for holding the needles. 

Then all you need to do once the cover is made and the felt pieces are cut is to fold both the outer case and the inner felt pages in half, position so the folds on both line up and sew right up the centre line. This will give you a "book" with a cover of your outer fabric and inside there will be 4 ( or twice as many as your rectangles of felt) pages.

You can use both sides of each page buy I try to just use the one side then the needles - with the cottons I tend t leave attached as you can see above, do not tend to tangle and stab you as much when you are locating the needle you want. I originally had a page for crewel ( big eye needles) including the bodkins - wool needles, a page for small eye sewing needles and then used the inside cover for safety pins and elastic threaders.

You can see where the felt is used left where I have started to tidy up my needles. But then decided what the heck show you how it really looks not a nice set up picture. This the real deal.

That is really what prompted me to blog about this needle case. Its kind of insignificant but for  me it was THE step that caused me to begin sewing my own clothing - at least this time round. So not really a small item at all but a major game changer!

The blogging idea came later when I felt alone and without friends who can understand. It connects me to the rest of the sewing community. Don't get me wrong I have my friends but none of them sew. Lots of them craft  in paper or paint but despite  the fact they appreciate my makes I need to talk to other sewers. It makes life 

better and more fun. I love to take part in collective sewing such as The Monthly Stitch challenges. Its about communicating with others like me. 

As you can see from these pictures my needle case can get very messy but I really do use this most weeks and it does work wonderfully to keep everything together and safe and stops me losing needles onto the floor. I decided not to set up the needle case to look perfect to show how much I actually really need this and use it.

Thanks for reading and just for the record: I really am going to stop buying patterns because in reality I am at the point where I like to see what is new but really I probably already own a similar pattern so why would I need to buy aother virtually identical one. _ its going to be hard to stop myself but I am going to try.

Bracken