Circular Knitting Needle Storage

My collection of circular knitting needles is growing. All the time. Storing them neatly has become such a problem lately that I was forced to start thinking of a better way to store them. I do not like any of the products on the market, so started looking at ideas other crafters came up with.

The idea I liked most was using smaller ring-binder type pouches such as in the photo above. I started looking at CD pouches, but could not find what I was looking for. CD pouches have slots for CD's and I wanted the ring-binder type. So Friday I paid my one and only local Thrift Store a visit. And I found THREE pouches just perfect for it!

I also found tins that I wanted for my straight needles.

The shorter, round tin will be suitably "embellished" to show off pretty knitting needles on my desk and the long tin for all the other straight knitting needles. I am delighted to say that all these items cost me less than $10! And can you believe the pouches are all leather?!

Most crafters used zip-lock type of plastic bags to store their circular knitting needles and just added stickers with the needle size and length on top. This is very neat and a great storage idea. However, I wanted to SEW my storage bags, not buy them. So I planned, plotted and measured and cut out fabric. Basically, it is just a long, doubled rectangle of fabric sewn up, and folded over for the pocket. I ironed on a very thin, lightweight fusible interfacing on one side only to give it some strength but not make it bulky.

This is the first sewn "pocket". I am so pleased with how it came out. Next step was to make the holes and set the eyelets.

I used my old faithful Crop-A-Dile from my scrapbooking days to make the holes and set the eyelets. My favorite and most useful tool!

Here's a close-up of my finished pockets with the eyelets all set.

The first pouch almost completed with 5 pockets for now, but still need to make quite a few more. I still need to work on an idea to label each pocket with the size and length of each needle. This must be an idea that allows me to add to my collection all the time, so I need to be able to change the label often. I do not want the pouches to be too bulky, so will only make up to 8 pockets per pouch. I still have some small changes to make to the pockets to make them perfect, but overall I love my new Circular Knitting Needle storage pouch.

I am so in the mood to sew a few handbags again! I went through all my patterns the weekend and selected a few bags I have not made before. I even selected fabric for one of them. Now I just need to find the time! Hope you all have a great week!