Friday 14 December 2012

The biggest needle book in the world

A while ago, I participated in the Scrappy Swap, run by Kat (Diary of a Flutter.Kat), with able assistance from Karen (Sew Peachey).  It was my first swap, and a really great one to start with.  The idea was to swap a FQ of scraps, a small handmade item and a small local item. 

My swap partner said her favourite colour was orange, so this was my initial fabric pull for the small handmade item:


I decided that the third print from the left had a bit much white in it to give the kind of rainbow effect that I wanted, so I used it as the lining of the needle book I made.


Umm, I'm not sure if you can tell from the scale of my embroidery scissors on the needle book, but it is the biggest needle book in the world.  Like 6 inches square.  That's what happens when you make things up as you go along, people.  Its also pretty floppy, because I only interfaced the exterior and not the lining.  On the plus side, you can fit a lot of stuff in the middle of it.  I know, I stuffed all my scraps and another FQ of fabric (my local item) into it before sending!

But, also this happens.  Improv piecing.  Sort of - the lines were all straight and ruled and I had an idea of where I was going with it.  Comments from my swap partner lead me to orange scraps and Essex Yarn Dyed Linen in black - it wasn't what I initially intended, but it worked so well!  I put another border of the same background fabric around this before it was finished, so the proportions worked a bit better.


I'm sorry this is such a crummy picture.  It was taken at night, with my phone, and then instagrammed.  I did take pictures of the exterior in daylight at the same time as I took the photo of the lining inside, but I don't have them any more.  I'm quite gutted, because I was pretty pleased with how this turned out (even with its enormousness and other imperfections), and wanted to show it off.

And what did I get in return?  Well, the person I made for also made for me.  Bree (My Crafty Crap) made me this super lovely needle book with teeny tiny EPP hexagons, and yellow, and hand stitching, and gnomes!  I love it, and I'm also looking forward to not losing all my needles anymore.


Yellow EPP Needlecase

Bree also sent me some super lovely scraps, a cute little card case and a keyring from her home state (which was snapped up by an American-sports-mad guy).

All in all, this was a great experience, and I look forward to my next swap.  Have you had any swapping experiences lately, and how did they go?

4 comments:

Jess @ Elven Garden Quilts said...

How gorgeous! Both such lovely needle books. I haven't done a swap for a few months, but I do love them.

Susan said...

Your needlebooks are lovely! I did the Mouthy Stitches swap on flickr earlier in the year, but have concentrated on a bit of my own sewing lately! And I am in two bees, which is a first for me this year!

Cat said...

LOVE the colour way you pulled out ! Gorgeous needlebook and I'm a little incy bit addicted to hexies

Unknown said...

Your article covers all the major aspects of the topic. Simply amazing.MachineEmbroidery