A cute little knitting needle case can keep all your knitting needles and other necessary little goodies organized in a single place. You will find it very convenient in the middle of your project when you need to change the needles and dive into the drawers, bags, boxes and end up being frustrated and tired.
It’s quite a beginner-friendly project. There you will have a little clear acrylic pocket where you can put your goodies a little flap and spots for all of your different sizes of knitting needles and a little patch for the yarn needles for weaving in ends.
Things You Will Need
The supplies of this project are simple. You will need-
- some fusible fleece
- some fabric for the outside and inside of the case
- some fabric for the pocket
- some fabric for the top flap
- some binding fabric for the pockets and binding fabric for the whole thing
- a little piece of regular cotton batting
- Some clear vinyl (It is as easy to sew with vinyl as with a regular piece of fabric. The only thing you should take care of is that you do not iron over it because it will thus melt all over your iron)
- Standard supplies like rotary trimmer, self-healing ma, and rulers.
- Ribbons (You can make one with your fabric)
How You Will Make Knitting Needle Case
Prepare the outside of the case
At first, prepare the outside of the little case. You can use 3 different fabrics for it- the outside fabric, lining fabric, and fusible fleece. One side of the fusible fabric is smooth and the other side is somewhat lumpy.
Lay the outside fabric on the fusible fleece and smoothen it with your hand. Press your iron down for about ten seconds and keep moving over the whole fabric to let the outside fabric and the fusible fabric adhered to each other. After that, they will get stuck and won’t move anywhere.
You can use your regular quilt batting instead of fusible fleece. You will have to stitch some quilt lines across it to fuse the two fabrics.
Adhere the piece of ribbon to the outside
Now fold the ribbon in half. Trace the center of the fabric and measure across there.
Line up your marker and make a tiny little dot. Then take your ribbon and line it up in the middle then pin it to keep it secure in that place to avoid moving when you will sew it.
Now stitch back and forth and make a box with a little ‘X’. Now keep this piece aside with your lining fabric.
Prepare the top flap
Now make your top flap which folds down and protects your needles from coming out. Put the little batting on one corner of the lining fabric for the flap.
Run a stitch down it with your sewing machine. You can get a straight stitch or zigzag stitch that will look nicer. After stitching the little batting will be attached well.
Now round the corners. Just flip over one of your pieces and draw a rounded corner. It does not need any specific measurement. You can even merely guess and do it. You can also place a little bucket right there and draw.
If you do not want rounded corners, you can totally skip this step. Do the same thing on the other corner.
Now take your outside fabric and your lining fabric with the little piece and flip it on top of each other right sides together and line up the edges. Pin them so that they cannot move around.
Sew a quarter of an inch inside this line all the way down this edge following this curve. And then do a backstitch at the front and back. You do not need to stitch the long edge. You will get it stitched eventually when you assemble the project.
When you stitch the curve, slow down a little bit. Guide the curve with your fingers. If it goes out of your control you can lift up the sewing machine’s foot and turn the piece a little bit. After stitching the straight line when you get the second curve, again slow down the stitching.
You can now trim the excess part with a rotary trimmer or regular scissors. Trim right along the line but do not snip the stitch line.
Now you can just flip this inside or right side out. You have got the little flap and now you have to press out those seams with your fingers or You can take something with a pointed corner or a rounded edge to coax that seam out a little bit nicer.
Now give it a press with your iron. Then run a stitch all the way around the outside of it to give it a finished look.
Prepare your pockets
Now you are going to make your front pocket where you can keep the little needles. Take two pieces of fabric for the pocket.
Put them right sides together and then sew down that short edge on the right-hand side over there.
It will be an exposed edge. Run a quick stitch down, it is a quarter of an inch in. Then press the seam with iron or with your fingers.
Prepare a binding strip for the pocket
Take a binding strip and fold and press it in a quarter of an inch and then press it in half wrong sides together.
Now take these raw edges and line it up with the raw edges of the front pocket. Sew quarter of an inch of it all the way down.
Press it up with your iron. You need to flip it over to the other side. Flip it over the edge and run a stitch down to secure it on the backside.
The binding on your pocket is done with a finished edge.
Prepare and sew the clear pocket
Take the vinyl. The edges will get caught up in the binding when you put your project together, so do not fold the edges.
Iron the piece of binding for the clear pocket in half and then press in both sides towards the middle and then press in each edge towards the centre. Fold it in half and press again. Place the clear vinyl into the crease.
Now run a stitch down to attach them. It is slippery so you have to stitch slowly so that your plastic does not slip out.
Place the pocket on your lining piece
Now take the front pocket and your lining piece and line up the front pocket in the left bottom left corner of the lining fabric. The finished edge should be pointing towards the right.
Draw and sew straight lines on the pocket
Mark straight lines every inch or so where you want your pockets. You can make them wider or thinner according to your need. Put a few pins to keep them fixed in a place.
Draw a line about one and a half inches or so. Draw a few more lines using the first line as a guide. If you want to keep other things in the case other than just knitting needles (like scissors), draw the lines a little wider.
Now do a straight stitch down those lines that you have marked. The edges will get caught up when you put the whole project together. Do one straight stitch the far edges to seal it on. Do a backstitch over the binding to make the pockets more durable.
Prepare your binding
Take three binding strips and take these over to the machine by putting them end to end right sides down together.
Run a stitch down of quarter of an inch using a straight seam.
Do the same with the other end. Fold it in half the wrong sides together and press it to get a nice crease. Press the seams open to reduce the bulk.
Thus, crease down the entire piece. Now your binding will turn into a long strip pressed in half wrong sides together.
Attaching the case together
Now get all the pieces in place. Take the outside of the bag with the straps and place it right side down then place the lining fabric right side up. So, you get a sandwich, the outside, the fusible fleece-the lining with pockets.
Take your top flap and line it up along the top edge and take the clear pocket and line that up along the other edge.
Now put a few clips all the way around your piece to keep everything in place so that it doesn’t shift around.
Now add the binding. The binding has a raw edge. The edge which opens up should be aligned with the raw edge of the project. And the nice edge should be towards the project.
Start sewing from the corner so that when you come back around, you may get plenty of room around. All the layers must be together and do a backstitch, straight down to the corner.
When you get to a quarter inch from the edge of the project, raise the machine’s foot, turn the project to a slight angle, put your back foot down and do a backstitch to secure the stitch and cut your thread.
Lift the foot up, put your finger on the binding tail and pull the fabric, give it a diagonal press to allow the raw edge of the binding to line up with the raw edge of this fabric. Again hold the binding with the finger and fold it straight down on top of itself to get a little triangle fold and sew all four corners.
When you are reaching where started, at five to six inches distance, stop and do a backstitch there to secure it. To join the seam pieces, cut the extra down with your rotary trimmer from the two tails letting them overlapping by ¼ inch.
Take those pieces together and open them up.
Sew them together to let them fold nice and flat.
Now resume stitching from the point where you have stopped to meet back up with the beginning stitch line. Go past your starting stitch about ½ inch and do backstitch.
Sew the other edge of the binding
Now bind the other edge. Press the binding fabric around, pull the binding out, fold it over and then run a stitch to attach it to the outside of the case.
When you’re back to where you started, go past that a little bit and do a backstitch and you’re done!
Your project is now ready to hold your needles, scissor, needle gauges, etc.
Since the cutting technique and sewing method of a knitting needle case is simple you can also make it using a handheld sewing machine. You can store knitting needles in the needle case and store this case in a knitting bag that will allow you to carry all your knitting accessories anytime to anywhere.
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