A Christmas Gift

I made exactly one Christmas gift this year. I was spending Christmas day with one of my sisters and she had told me about looking for a case for her circular needles. So the week before Christmas, I looked for a pattern and found one that looked like it would work. (This one from BumpyCrafts on Etsy.)

I went through my fabrics and pulled out some fat quarters I thought my sister would like and would go together.

They might not meet everyone's definition of "go together" but I liked the common oranges, purples and greens.

Following the pattern, I made several "pages" with pockets for the needles.

I spent a lot of effort to make sure the orange circles lined up across the pages, only to realize later that the large pocket on top makes it considerably less important.

I deliberately rounded the corners of the pages as well. You can never get a truly crisp square corner, so I traced the curve of a spool I had beside the machine to make the curves consistent.

The needles simply slide into the pockets.

I thought about making a place where she could write the needle size on the pocket but didn't do the work to make that happen. As an alternative, she can slide a card with the information into the pocket if she wants.

The pattern has instructions for a snap closure, but I used a button and elastic. (Something I had on hand.)

I stacked two buttons on top of each other. The smaller one underneath makes room for the elastic to nest comfortably under the big button.

Using a button with a shank would have worked too but I didn't have one I liked for this project.

As I sewed on the buttons, I went through a smaller button on the back to keep the stitches from ripping through the fabric and because I thought it was a neater finish than the thread by itself.

Here's a top view where you can see the different pages:

The pattern called for a flannel lining to give more structure, but I used cotton batting scraps that I had on hand.

A finishing detail I added was some quilting on the cover before I assembled the pages.

Just a few highlights around the flower petals.

It was a fun project to make in a day or two. I hope it functions well.