How to make a needleminder



I thought I would share the finishing instructions for making a needleminder. You can see a finished one on Cozy Egg’s blog; I’m hoping to make one soon…


On wrong side of the two white lining pieces of fabric, trace the button shape with a sharp pencil. On the wrong side of the stitched piece, center the button over the design and trace around the button with a sharp pencil (Do NOT use pen!!). Once all the tracing is done, thread a sharp sewing needle with two threads of sewing cotton and baste around the traced circle, about one quarter inch outside the pencil line. Don’t knot the sewing thread - just leave a reasonable tail because you are going to pull from both ends of the thread to gather this fabric around your button shape. You have to baste each piece individually, if you don’t baste them individually and put them on individually - you will have a puckered mess.

Once you have both the white lining fabrics basted, insert one side of the button into the center (domed side down) and pull both ends snugly, knotting the two ends of the sewing thread. The fabric wraps around the button automatically and is very smooth. Attach the lining piece fabric to both the front and back of the button, and trim off the excess fabric on the inside of the button.
Complete the same process with whatever printed cotton backing fabric you’ve chosen, putting it over the lining fabric, pulling both ends of the string and knotting, trimming off the excess fabric inside the button shape.

Now you are ready to apply the stitched piece. Work the basting threads and the gathering the exact same way. If you need to “wiggle the design” so it’s centered on the button, do the wiggling as you pull up the gathering threads, centering the button dome side down in the center of the piece. Trim off the excess linen fabric from the inside of the button shape.

After covering both the front and the back of the button shapes take one magnet piece and place it on the inside center of the stitched piece of your button (no glue necessary - it will just hang on to the metal button on the inside and stay where you put it). Apply a very thin bead of tacky glue to the rim edge of the back of the button (not the stitched side). Take the stitched covered button and put the front and back of the button shapes together, matching up edges. Press the edges together and once the sides of the button have started to “stick”, find a heavy book, place the button face down on a towel and weight it with the book until it is completely dry. TIP: If you don’t trust the hole in the glue bottle, squeeze a little puddle of glue out on a piece of tin foil or wax paper and apply glue with a toothpick - much easier to control…and less chance of a “blob” coming out of the tip of the glue bottle. The other magnet side will go on the printed cotton outside to hold it on a q-snap or stitching frame to use as a needleminder.

BEADING:
Thread a thin, sharp sewing needle with double sewing thread. Knot the two ends and burying the knot, bring the needle up right next to the groove that divides the front and the back of the needleminder. Thread on about 85 beads and check to see if you have made it around the diameter of the needleminder…you want to have a string of beads that nestles down inside the groove - if you need to add a few or take off a few…go ahead but when you are all finished threading on the beads - you want them to meet up and butt up against each other (starting and ending bead). When you have enough beads so that they meet, take the needle and thread thru the first 3 beads you put on the needle. Before you tighten up the beading thread, using a toothpick, apply a very thin and tiny line of glue in the groove and lay the string of beads into that glue then take a tiny anchor stitch to hold the beads in place. Do NOT cut thread, put this aside and let the glue dry.

Beaded Ruffle:
From the front of the needleminder, using the same needle and thread, put six beads on the needle and insert needle from front to back under the bead string, three beads over from where the thread is coming out. Pull the needle out the back side of the needleminder, bring the needle over the top to the front side of the needleminder again, nestling the thread between the 3rd and 4th beads and shove the needle thru a tiny bit of fabric to the back of the needleminder. Now, thread on 6 more beads and coming from the back of the needleminder to the front of the needleminder, moving over 3 beads do the exact same thing. Work around the entire diameter of the needleminder exactly the same way - making a beaded ruffle every third bead. When you get to the end - if you have 4 beads or 2 beads - just add or take off a bead from the ruffle to compensate…and finish off your thread.