Our guild minister, Mistress Catherine Lorraine of Stonegate Manor, announced a while back that there would be a needlecase exchange at the guild meeting at this upcoming October Crown. Since I had been doodling on several swatches of the German counted thread satin stitch patterns like I had done on the reliquary pouch for the La Prova Dura auction, I decided to turn one that was halfway done into a finished needlecase. The embroidery of the case backing was the easy part; the finishing stuff, like usual, was difficult. I have done needlecases like this before for other people, but those were a while ago and I had to reinvent the wheel for this one.

The embroidery on the backing is done in four strands of Splendor silk in gold (color #877) and green (color #829) on either 28 or 32 count white evenweave art linen with a blunt needle. Since this is an on-and-off project, it took 7 months to complete. Had I really focused on this from the start, it only would have taken somewhere between 15-20 hours.

The pages are made of yellow craft felt and the ties are made of the same silk used for the embroidery, braided and with one small gold bell worked into each tie. The central page piece was also edged with blanket stitch. Once done, I folded the unembroidered edges back, cut out a piece of felt to cover the back, and stitched it down using blanket stitch. Along the way I tied in the finished ties. The final step was to sew in the central page piece with generously-sized split stitch.

The closed case is small, only 3” by 3”.

As you can see, it also doubles as a cat toy.

October Crown is a couple weeks past now, but I do want to note that the exchange was a great success. About 8 people participated, and a great variety of materials and techniques were used. I was happy to have picked out the case Felicia made, which was gold twist couched on green velveteen. Micheila happened to pick mine. The event was such a hit that a similar one will happen next year, when we make and exchange scissor fobs.

All pictures on this page were taken by myself on 9/1/06.