Work-in-Progress - Light house needle case

I began this needle case over a week ago. In the meantime I have been re-structuring my website. Almost 400 images have been loaded into four gallery pages. One for sold items, and others for Lynwoodcrafts' at Etsy, Lynwoodcrafts at Folksy and Lynwoodcrafts at WowThankYou. One or two images of sold items are still hiding in the wrong folder in my system - hopefully I'll come across them and add them in. Otherwise, everything can be viewed in one place. I have had great satisfaction from re-viewing old friends in the sold section. I hope their images might be useful in structuring ideas for commissions. I am always happy to make something special to order. Purchases are still made through each shop - these can easily be accessed from links on the website.

Back to the needle case! A piece of kunin felt was cut to the correct height but slightly wider than required for the finished piece.

Lengths of yarn, in green, yellows, 'sea blues' and 'sky blues' were felted to the kunin felt by using an embellisher machine. Since all the yarns, and felting were in one direction, the background felt has a tendency to 'shrink' this way - really caused by very slightly gathering it into the yarns - hence the extra width!

Having worked all the fibres very thoroughly to ensure that they are attached (check by looking for 'colouration' of the reverse of the felt background), the ends are trimmed - and safely stored to feed the embellisher on future projects. The felted piece was cut to the correct width - it hadn't shrunk much and the off cut was the right size for a brooch in the same theme. In order to ensure that all the fibres remain attached (not usually a problem with wool and mohair - but I had selected by colour and included some yarns with a higher content of other fibres), random machine stitching (using a 'shallow' zig zag stitch) is criss-crossed over the piece.

The lighthouse and sail boat are added in hand embroidery using tapestry wools. The suggestion of marram grass, yellow coastal poppies and sea pinks are stitched in vibrant shades of crochet cotton.

The edge of the cover is finished in blanket stitch using crochet cotton and changing the colour to correspond to each area of the design. The cover is lined with a checked fabric up-cycled from a shirt, and reinforced with a layer of heavy interfacing - to give structure and offer some resistance to needle points! Two pieces of felt, in bright blue, and golden yellow, are stitched at the centre to form four 'pages' for needles and pins. Crochet cords, worked from one of the yarns used in the design, are stitched in place - tied in a bow they provide a pretty, coordinating closure.

I hope you like the result!

Now listed at Lynwoodcrafts Etsy shop. A bookmark in the lighthouse design is also available at Etsy. A lovely storage container - an entirely new product, featuring both lighthouse and sailboat, is available at Folksy as is a brooch featuring the lighthouse. A notebook cover is in progress at present. Future plans include a specs case, gadget cosy, purse, and card wallet. Further bookmarks and brooches will be worked featuring the sailboat.