I found myself down a sewing case rabbit hole this week, re-visiting favourite fabrics and thinking about tweaking my small sewing case design. While tidying up the contents of one of my fabric drawers, I was thinking about trying a snap closure on my cases and I discovered a couple of small pieces of past favourite fabrics that were perfectly sized for a sewing case. In a somewhat nostalgic mood, I started with a classic re-make of this Tilda case, without any changes to the design:
This fabric was used for one of my early sewing cases and for this latest one, I even used the same coconut shell button as on the original. The only change from my original design is that I now knit the lurex closure loop, whereas I used to crochet it.
Next up was this lovely Bari J design, which I've used a number of times on larger custom cases as an accent print, but I never made a standard small case with it. Looking in my button box, this little metal leaf button from Textile Garden seemed just perfect with it:
Of course, having found the button and fixed my mind on it, again the case basic design didn't change!
Then, the next evening I was thinking about other favourite fabrics that would work for a sewing case and thought of a lovely Tilda print from her Bumblebee collection, which I used for my first sample tea bag case design. I made that with just one small piece of the fabric that I had in a scrap pack from Billow Fabrics and I never had any yardage of it. Of course, as soon as I went hunting for some yardage, it was sold out almost everywhere apart from Honeybee Cloths, so I bought a metre straight away (thank you Dawn – glad to have discovered your shop!):
Finally, my new closure could be tried out and I really do like it, although I feel torn about the absence of a button – choosing the button has always been one of my favourite things about making sewing cases… I also decided to machine embroider the edge of the little pocket inside, which I usually hand embroider:
I love the look of the machine embroidery and whilst I enjoy doing the hand embroidery, I think that my perfectionist tendancies just prefer the totally symmetrical look of the machine stitches:
I kept everything else about the case the same and I really like this gold ribbon for the scissor keep against the Aloe green cotton lining:
One of the other design tweaks I'd been thinking about is getting rid of the ribbon for the scissor keep and replacing it with a fold over closure that snaps into place, but the ribbon offers a more flexible fixing that works for more than one size of scissor. I think what I might do is start adding a second slip pocket at the back of the case that's split into two where the scissors could live. That might also offer an opportunity to use a button again as I could sew one on to the pocket that could be used to anchor the cord of a traditional scissor keeper? Or maybe I'll actually make a little matching scissor keeper that can be attached to any pair of scissors as well?! I'll be trying that out next I think 😀
In my Etsy shop, my black and silver nani iro project bag has been popular this week:
As have my cuddle whales with my cat loving customers:
And, finally, my first order for my standalone new style feather fascinator toy came in this week, although I have already made several of them to go in cuddle boxes. Hopefully several kitties should be having fun with their toys this weekend!
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