How to Make a Needle Book

Hi. I love wool. And I've always wanted... You know, I have wool all over the place. I have felted wool in boxes and felted wool on shelves.

And every once in a while, I want to play with my wool, but I don't want it to be a project that takes a long time. And I also love to do things that make nice gifts. So I'm going to show you today how to make a needle book. You can decorate it any way you want. It's a simple needle book, but it lasts forever.

And all it is, is you have leaves of wool, essentially, different pages of wool that you can store your needles on. And in my needle book, in this design, you actually have sort of an index with a page number and what you have on there. So I'm gonna show you how to make this, and you can make this in a couple of hours, even embroidered and everything. And if you have a friend who either loves wool or just sew and has a lot of needles, it's a really nice little present to give. So first thing, here's what you need.

You need five pieces of felted wool. Now, it has to be felted wool. There's a real difference. Felted wool is a fabric that has been woven from wool and then felted. So it actually has a weave.

Wool felt is more of a conglomeration, it's made from wool fibers, but they're not woven. They're, you know, loose and sort of are compressed together, and they make a felt, wool felt. That's not what you want. You want felted wool. Felted wool, because it's woven, it's not gonna come apart on the edges.

It's not gonna flake away and feather, it's just gonna stay just like that without being hemmed forever. You know, wool lasts forever unless a dog gets it or the moths get it. In my house, it's the cat. So what you need, you want five different pieces of felted wool, and they're cut five inches by six inches. So five pieces, five inches by six inches.

They can all be the same color if you want. I like having a variety, so that's why I have five different colors. So first you cut five pieces, five inches by six inches. Then you're gonna need a couple more pieces that can either match. This one's gonna be my cover color, or I could, of course, make this the cover.

They don't have to match. This is what's gonna hold your snap in place. So you wanna cut those about an inch by, oh, maybe four inches. This is not a finished size, but this is a size that's gonna make it easier for you to sew the snaps on in your sewing machine. So the other thing, of course, you're gonna need are snaps.

Now these are pretty big. These are close to half an inch. You can use a smaller snap, if you like. I like the sturdiness of this, because I like having a slightly bigger tab for my snaps, but you can certainly use a smaller one if you want. And the other thing you're gonna want or need is some handmade paper.

This is handmade paper that I picked up. I think I got it at a craft store. Might've been a scrapbooking store. And this one's fairly see-through. There are some much sturdier ones.

There are ones that are much more opaque, but I start with a thin one, just 'cause I like the way it feels, I like the way it looks. And what I did was I just used fusible web on the back of it. Paperback fusible web doesn't just work with fabric, It also works with paper, and of course, a handmade paper like this is thick. This actually is a silk handmade paper. So I can just drool all over that too.

And I backed it with fusible web, and then I cut out two pieces here. And I'll show you where those get used. So you're gonna back your paper with fusible web, and then you're gonna cut out two pieces that are two and 1/2 inches by four and 1/2 inches. And I'll show you where those go later. Okay, so that's what you need in terms of fabric and snaps.

The other thing that you're going to need are some wool threads, wool fibers. Now, there are different kinds. You know, on the market, you can also use Pearl cotton for this. It doesn't have to be wool, but I like the wool, just 'cause I like, you know, that it's in keeping with the fabric. This will is from Aurifil.

And if you're a quilter, you know who Aurifil is, and you probably have lots of their cotton thread. If you happen to buy Aurifil in the red, this red color of tube, that red, that means you've gotten the wool. You didn't get the cotton, you got the wool. So if you're looking for wool, you're looking for that red, and you can get it in lots of stores, lots of quilt stores. And if you can't find it anywhere else, you can get it online.

Just do a search for Aurifil wool. Then there's another brand that I really liked. This is Madeira. Madeira's wool. It's got a nice sheen and it's easy to handle.

You know, it's also readily available. I think you're more likely to find Madeira in something like a Michaels or a craft store or online, but I love it. Now, if I was going to use another kind of fiber, this is a silk. And if you look at this, it's already got beads strung on it. And it's just wonderful to use.

It looks like you early, you know, took all this time hand beading your work, when all you did was use a thread that already had the beads on. It takes a slightly different usage. You're gonna have to couch it or wind through things, rather than up and down. But I'll show you about that. This is another really beautiful silk.

This is silk with sequence. I don't know if you can see those little sequence in there. Do you see those? And they add another sparkle. Again, they're gonna have to be couched.

Okay, this is plain old embroidery floss. It's cotton. It will work fine. It doesn't have exactly the same feel as the wool, but it certainly works fine. It looks beautiful.

This is a Pearl cotton knit. It comes in both hanks and balls. And it comes in assortment of weights. This is a number 12. It's very fine.

This is a number five, so it's heavier. And then another really wonderful thing about Pearl cotton is you can get these little bubbles, these little balls. Now this Pearly cotton is a weight in between the 12 and the five. This is an eight. And this is probably the weight I use most often when I'm stitching on wool.

And these little balls are really fun, because you can put the end through there, put the thread right through there, and then you can just put the lid on, and you can pull out as much as you want. And look at that, see how it unwinds. I just think that's really fun. And it never rolls away from you, so the cat doesn't get it, and bite it and everything else. So these are some of the fibers you can use.

Now I'm gonna be using one of the Madeira colors today, 'cause I just think it's pretty. And I'm gonna show you a little secret. It is really hard for some people to thread on a needle with something like a wool, 'cause it's fluffier and it can be harder to get on. So here's what you're gonna do. Okay, I am going to bend the wool over the needle.

You see that? And I'm pinching it. And then I'm gonna pull the needle out and push the eye of the needle onto that little fold that I had in the thread. And then the thread pulls right through. So again, just so you can see it one more time, you're going to fold the thread over the needle like that and pinch it, okay?

So when you have it pinched like that, you slide the needle out, and you push the eye of the needle onto the thread and pull through. So that's a good thing to know whenever you're using a thread that's fluffy or a slightly bigger for your needle than you would normally use. Okay, so I'm just gonna put a little knot in the end there and put it aside. Another tip, when you're using needles, and you've got it ready to go,, and you're gonna put it aside somewhere, stick it into the thread or into something. Don't just put it down.

You might find it, really, the hard way. I've done that a number of times too. Okay, to get started, you're gonna want to layer up your five pieces of wool in whatever color order you find pleasing. So I've already gotten mine pretty much aligned, but I want them really on top of each other. I don't want anyone sticking out over the edge.

Although the inner ones, we're gonna trim a tiny bit later. Okay, so this is my outside color. And what I'm going to do... That's my outside color. This is my inside color.

All right, I'm going to take some safety pins. Oh, see how they wiggle away? This is why I'm safety pinning it, 'cause they tend to shift a little bit. Okay, I'm gonna safety pin through all the layers. If you feel like it, you can machine baste these too.

You can just do a stitch, you know, a line of basting stitches through all layers. But this is a really good project when you're not close to a machine. So I think, you know, it's perfectly fine to just pin these things. Okay, the bigger the a pin, of course, the easier it's going to be. But some of them I think are so big.

That didn't align just right. So don't hesitate. You can just unpinned and line it up again. Okay. So I'm just gonna pin these together.

I'm gonna probably put about four pins in. And I'm not pinning down the center, 'cause that's where I'm going to be stitching. Okay, so got that pinned. All right, the last one over here If you do decide to machine baste it, don't stitch more than about an inch per place. You don't wanna hold the wool so hard that it doesn't have any room to kind of adjust.

All right, so I've got that pinned. And now what I'm going to do, I'm gonna take my ruler, and I know that this is six inches, 'cause I cut it at six. So I'm gonna put the three-inch line on this edge, like that, which means that the center of the ruler is now right down the center, excuse me, the edge of the ruler is right down the center of my wool. Okay, making sure that's there. And now I'm gonna take, oops.

See, this pen has both a thicken end and a thin end, and I want the thin one, it looks like a dot. And I'm gonna look. Now, if I'm looking closely... Okay, I'm gonna put this... You see how there's 1/4-inch right there?

I want to be measuring three inches here on the three-inch line. Okay, now I'm gonna put a little dot 1/4 inch below the top, just like that, very light. And then every 1/2 inch, I'm just gonna put a little dot. This is going to indicate where I'm going to be stitching, so that my stitches are the same length. And again, right at that 1/4-inch, there.

It doesn't have to be dark. You don't need a big, heavy mark. This is just showing you where your stitching is going in and out, so you get even links. Okay, I've already knotted this, as you know, and what I'm going to do, I'm going to start... It doesn't really matter which end I start with, but what I'm gonna do, the reason I have a knot there, so I don't pull it all the way through by accident, but I am gonna leave a tail.

That's my goal, is to leave a tail, and I'm just gonna call this the top. So the top of my book. You can see on this one, how it's stitched together. And then there's a little... Up at the top here, I have a little bow.

Well, that's where the two pieces of yarn, or excuse me, of the wool thread come out. So I'm gonna start there and leave that tail. Again, I did put a knot in it, because I don't wanna pull it all the way through. If you're not prone to silly things, like I am, you don't need to do that. Okay.

Straight down. You wanna go straight down, and there's my tail. Okay. And I'm going to come up in the next one, again, trying to put my needle straight now. Do you see how that's not right on that mark?

All right, so I'm just gonna move it over until I come right up on my spot. Okay, and I'm just gonna keep going like that. I'm gonna stitch all the way down, and I'm not gonna do this kind of a stitch, where you rock it. I'm gonna go like a stab stitch straight through. So that on the inside, I'm getting the same length of stitch.

So up there, and down here, and I wanna show you what happens when I get to the bottom. Okay. You're gonna stitch down like this. You know, it feels really good. The wool, it's just a lovely thing to work with.

And of course, the wool has lanolin. There's not a lot of lanolin left after it's been felted, but it just feels wonderful, and it's good for your hands. Okay, so when I come to the end here, I'm gonna bring that all the way around, go down that hole again. So what I'm doing is looping around the end, like that. Do you see?

Okay, it's just like on this one, same thing. I looped around the end. And then what I'm gonna do is you stitch back, going in opposite holes. So, in other words, now I'm gonna come up where I went down. Oops.

And you're gonna take your time when you're doing this at home. I'm doing it kind of quickly, 'cause here I am, in a trying to make this, and that's what you're doing. You're just gonna keep stitching all the way up. When I get to the top, I would come around over the edge, and come to here, and just tie a little bow, and I can come back and put beats on that if I want to. Okay, once that's all done, I'm gonna take my pins out.

All right, and we're gonna pretend it's all sewn. Okay. One more. Okay. Some pins are less cooperative than others.

All right. Now, pretending that this is sewn all the way up, like that one, I'm now going to bend it on its spine. And remember, when you are bringing your thread out, like, with your tail, you're gonna want that on the outside of your book, which, with mine, is the blue. Okay, so I'm gonna fold it like that, like I did with this one, and this would be completely stitched, and you're holding it, and you're just gonna kind of really make sure it's flat, flat, flat, and you kind of work the thread, excuse me, the wool out from the spine. And then you're gonna trim, because when you fold it in half, as you can see, this guy has to go around more fabric, so, of course, it gets shortened and it's kind of on the outside of the curve there.

So what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna trim one or two of these at a time, as you can see there, until they're all even. Okay. See how easy that is? Do not trim that last one, 'cause it's gonna be the same as the front one. So you make sure you don't trim the back cover.

See, I got one to go. That one right there. Okay. Making sure I don't get the back one. Okay, there.

That's all trimmed. Okay, and now, the next part is to put on the snaps. Okay, the way I put on snaps is I do it on the sewing machine, because it's just so much stronger that way, but it can be hard to get... If you have this on this tiny little thing here, you can imagine trying to sew that. So what I do is I put it on a big piece like this, the one inch by four inch or so, and I just zigzag into the holes to make sure that the stitch length is zero, and zigzag into those holes, zigzag into those holes, and it's set.

So I'm gonna put one side on one and the other one on the other. You're gonna have to make sure you've got them in the right orientation. So that one will be sewn upside down. And then they're gonna be placed. Let's say, if we're using this one, I'm gonna put that right there, like that.

Now, before I put it there, I meant to say this. Okay, if it's stitched like that and stitched down, that's when you're gonna wanna trim it, because you don't want it to be, obviously, too long, but you also don't want it to be too thick. And I think it's much nicer to have that rounded end. So that's what I'm doing. I just would trim around about 1/8 of an inch outside there, and go straight from there, like I did on this one.

And so once you have those both trimmed and the snap sewn in place, you're gonna just put it right under this edge like that. And you're going to know that you're gonna have to stitch that down when you're doing your cover embroidery. So the next thing, the next part, is you can even stick that in place with a glue stick, and just let it dry. It'll be fine. You can stitch right through the glue stick.

Okay, once that's in place, I'm going to go ahead and stitch whatever design I want on the cover. And I came up with this design by looking at wrapping papers. Wrapping papers are really fun to use. Let's say, I'm looking at this, and I wanna put a flower on the front, that little flower is the right scale, so I would take... Now, see these little pins?

They're called applique pins. Let's say, I'm gonna have the green for this outer part of the flower and the yellow for the inside. So what I would do, I would just pin the green. And I'm looking at it through the back, so I can see and use an applique pin to hold it right in the center of the flower. And then you're gonna cut out around the outside, and you'll have the big green flower and the back.

And then you can take the thing you just cut out, pin it onto the yellow, and cut on the inner one, and you're gonna have that all ready to go. It's a really good way to get simple applique shapes. For instance, if you're looking at this one, you could make a red balloon, which would be an easy shape to cut. You can even look at this for inspiration on how to layer a ribbon or other fiber on the front. And then this one, if you look closely, you might see something on this paper that reminds you of that.

And for me, it's this one right here. Do you see how that's wiggling? I guess I should put it the other way for you here. It's not perfect, but it's kind of an idea. Oh, there it is.

I found it. It's this guy. You see how that guy's kind of going over. That's what inspired me. And then this shape, this leaf shape, comes directly from there.

I did exactly what I told you about. I pinned this paper onto the green, like that, and just pin it in place, and then I cut out around and I got my leaf here. So what I did was I did a line of feather stitch, and then I put my little guy there and I put my leaves there. And then I put a cluster of french knots to hold onto my snap tab. And if I wanted, I could do other things.

I might take one of those beaded things, I was showing you one of the beaded fibers, and go through the feather stitching. You could stitch anything you want. On the back, I just did a simple lazy daisy motif to hold it in place. You can embroider the entire back. You could blanket stitch all the edges.

You can have such a good time. And here, where the two threads came out, I took three beads. Now, my needle with the wool on it won't go through the beads. So there's actually thread here and I just sew those beads down. And then it looks like the they're held in place by the green, because I tied a little bow around it, but you can see it's so simple, and it's really pretty and easy.

Now, on the inside, once I have all that stitching, you know, I've got knots on the back, and some stitches aren't very pretty on the back. So in here, what I did... Okay, on this one, it would be the blue. First I took my paper. Remember the paper that I put fusible web on?

You can either write your list now about what you're gonna put on each page, or you can just put it in, and then write in what you want once you have it all arranged. But I just fused that into the second page. And then I used another piece of fusible web here to fuse the first two leaves together. And in this one, the first two pages, you've got the the cover, and then you have that green, the green there, that light green was the first page of this one, like the blue here. And so that's fused to cover all the threads, all the tails.

And I've got a place to put my list here. And on this one, if you go to the back cover, I left it open, so you could see, there's my stitching. This is already fused in place and written on. And then I will just take a piece of fusible web, the same size as that, and you would measure it now, 'cause you trimmed it. You wanna make sure you get it right, and just fuse that down in place.

And what you have is this cute little book. I numbered the pages like this, and just so you know how I do it for myself, you may do it a different way. Okay. I know that page one, these are my between needles, my quilting needles. And here's are the sizes, 12, 10, nine, eight.

So that's 12, 10, nine, and eight. And I just keep going that way. I know that my sharps are on page two. So I don't have to flip through the whole book. You know, I know a lot of books, they label right on the page.

Well, then you can't change your mind. You can't rearrange it. And in my case, I don't wanna have to flip through the whole thing. So tapestry needles, that's my third page. So I'll go here for my tapestry needles, and I know what size I have, because they have them written right there.

If you have this in place, you haven't written in, and you decide you wanna change your mind, you can hate this with your iron and often it'll pull right off, or you just get the next weight of paper, the next weight of handmade paper. Because when you put fusible web on the back of something, look at that, you can't see through it. So that's it. This is my cute little needle book. Oh, and one more thing, if you're like me, and, you know, like I said, I like to kind of cover up the tails, I did take one of my favorite buttons, and I stitched it on top of the snap on that one, so I could look at it and have it all be pretty.

And that's it. And it doesn't take that long, and it's a really fun little project, and what a wonderful gift. So if you wanna take care of yourself or someone else, it's a quick and easy way to do it.