Fabric Needle Case

If you are looking for a cute and convenient way to store or transport needles and pins, this instructable is for you!

These needle cases are easy to sew and will make you hunt for hand sewing projects just for an excuse to take out your beautiful case. They also make great gifts!

You will need:

• two pieces of fabric, each 3 1/4" X 6". In this instructable, I have used a different fabric on the inside, but you can use the same fabric for both the inside and outside.
• one piece of a fusible stabilizer, 3 1/4" X 5 3/4" - this could be an interfacing, or ideally, something that is a bit thicker. I used Peltex fusible stabilizer which is like a thin piece of foam with a fusible web on both sides.
• two pieces of felt, each 2 7/8" X 3 3/4".This would make four "pages" to hold your needles. (If you don't have too many needles to store, you could use just one piece of felt to make two “pages” instead of four.)
• one small piece of velcro (about 1/2" X 3/4").
• thread that coordinates with your fabric.
• A rotary cutter, mat, and acrylic ruler are nice to make clean crisp cuts, but scissors will do.
• You will also need access to an iron and a sewing machine.

As shown in the photo, cut your stabilizer piece into 3 pieces, 2 1/8", 2 3/8" and 1 1/4" and lay them out in this order. (They will all be 3 1/4" high since you started with a piece that was 3 1/4" X 5 3/4").

Sew the "hook" side of the Velcro (hook and loop tape) to the good (right) side of the fabric that you plan to use for the inside of the needle case. It should be sewn 1/4" from the edge of one of the short (3 1/4") sides, and centred. Sew it down, using short stitches, and starting and ending with 3 very short stitches. Attaching the velcro at this stage rather than waiting until after all the pieces have been fused together lets you hide the stitching.

However, it's not that serious if you forget - you can add the Velcro later if you are not concerned about the stitches showing. If you look closely at the cover photo of this instructable, you will notice rectangular stitching on the blue needle case on the upper left - this is the stitching showing on the back from Velcro that was added after all the pieces were fused. Version 2.0 on the right corrects this - the stitching is not visible because it is hidden under a layer of stabilizer and fabric, as described in this step.

On your ironing board:

Lay your 3 stabilizer pieces on top of the wrong side of your outside fabric piece, keeping the stabilizer pieces in the order set out in the previous step. Leave a small gap between the stabilizer sections, about 1/8". These gaps are the fold lines for the needle case. Without a gap, it won't fold easily. The stabilizer pieces should line up with the outer edge of the fabric.

Lay the 2nd inside fabric piece on top, with the wrong side of the fabric touching the stabilizer, and with all outer edges aligned. As you can see in the photo, this is the piece with the velcro attached.

Fuse the fabric to the stabilizer following the instructions for your stabilizer. Usually this means pressing with a hot iron for 5 seconds or more. Once you have fused the top piece to the stabilizer, carefully turn it all over (you don't want the pieces to shift) so that the other fabric is on top, and press again, so that the both fabric pieces are fused to the stabilizer which is sandwiched in between.

Although you have aligned your edges, they will benefit from being neatly trimmed. You want to get a really clean, neat, crisp edge, with no loose threads hanging, and ensure that all the layers (fabric, stabilizer, fabric) go right to the edge. While you are trimming you should also be making any adjustments necessary to "square up" your rectangle so it is a true rectangle, not crooked or wider on one side than the other.

Use a zigag stitch and stitch all around your fused rectangle, enclosing the cut edge of the fabric inside the stitching. You may want to test the stitch length and width on a scrap piece first. Start and end your stitching with 3 short straight stitches to anchor you stitches.

Take special care going around the corners: once you are close to reaching one end, lift the needle by hand, rotate the fabric 90 degrees and position it so that the needle will go in exactly where you want it, overlapping the stitches that you sewed on the other side.

If you are not satisfied with the density of your stitching (the goal is to create a smooth satin stitch edge), simply continue and take one more pass stitching around the entire perimeter of the rectangle, finishing with 3 short stitches to tie off the thread. The last photo shows the fabric sandwich after 2 rounds of zigzag stitching. Compare this with the 3rd photo, where there was only one round of stitching. It's up to you as to how much to stitch. You can use a wide variety of decorative threads if you want to dress it up even more.

Now that you have your 3 layers fused and stitched together, you can sew the "loop" piece of the velcro near the top of the outside fabric. Fold the needle case into its 3 sections and line up the "loop" piece so that it will fit under the "hook" piece that you sewed to the inside fabric in step 2. Once you have positioned the loop piece so that it will line up, sew it down, using short stitches, and starting and ending with 3 very short stitches.

Put one felt piece on top of the other, and mark the centre line with a pin, using the pin to connect the 2 pieces of felt.

Place the felt pieces on top of the fused fabric, lining up the pin with the natural fold line from the gap you left between the two larger pieces of fusible stabilizer. Clip all parts together, and turn over to the outside. Here you can see indent in the fabric from the gap quite clearly. This will be your stitching line. Stitch through all layers to attach the felt pieces, starting and ending with 3 short stitches.

The last photo shows a needle case with many different types of needles. I've used my sewing machine to embroider the word LEATHER on one of the pages, so that I know to look there for my sharp leather needles. If you'd like to label or embroider any of your felt pages, do this before you sew them to the fused fabric.

The Velcro securely closes your needle case, and the felt and stabilizer keep your pins and needles safely tucked away, so you won't lose them or be stabbed by mistake.

Enjoy your new needle case!