This little book will certainly hold your needles. It could also be a repository for the scraps you can’t part with. It could tell a story, mark an occasion, like a birth or anniversary, or be a sort of travel journal, the pages filled with little things found along the way and saved.
I always travel with small sewing and it is always a mess of ziplock bags and other aesthetically unappealing containers with sharp things poking out of them. This started as a practical project and turned into a whole other thing.
I made this needle book for future me. Future me is the sort of person who is packed a week before travel, has extra light bulbs and never runs out of toilet paper.
I’m in love with my little needle book and plan to take it pretty much everywhere for the rest of my life. There are more of these books in my future, for needles and ideas and memories. It is good winter evening sewing.
pin it for later
I’ve put together a tutorial for you below. And subscribers will have a link to a pdf download emailed to them.
You will need a basic sewing kit and the templates.
download the templates
materials :
- cotton or light linen
- scraps for details
- matching and contrasting thread
- button
- embroidery thread
- batting or felt
- light weight cardboard
- ribbon
- gluestick
Cut out two each of the A, B, C and heart pattern pieces. One side of A will be your cover page. Add patches, embroidery, appliqués, and other details to your pages. Also cut out 2 cardboard support pieces from light weight cardboard ( a cereal box is great). Use a glue stick to glue the cardboard to pieces of batting or felt and cut out.
Note: Piecing fabric together before cutting the pattern shapes creates a nice variety in the pages.
Cut a 3 and 1/2 inch length of ribbon or trim and fold in half. With the right side of the cover fabric facing you pin the folded ribbon to the center of the left side. The folded edge should extend 1 and 1/4 inches from the seam line. I’m using 1/4 inch cotton twill tape.
Pin The A, B, C and heart pieces with the right sides together and stitch the seam lines. Leave a small section on each open for turning. Be sure that the opening on A is large enough to insert the cardboard supports. Clip off the corners of the rectangles close to the seam. Clip the bottom point of the heart and clip notches around the curves at the top and at the center.
Turn your sewn and clipped pieces right side out. Use a chopstick or similar to push the corners and curves all the way out. Add any additional appliqué or other details.
Insert the cardboard and batting pieces into the cover page. The batting side should be facing the inside and the cardboard facing the outside cover. Push the cardboard all the way to each side, there should be an empty space between them. Leave the cover open at the bottom.
Stack the pages with the ribbon loop on the right and and fold your book in half.
Fold the loop up over the cover to determine the location for your button. Stitch the button in place and – optionally stitch right through the cardboard support for a tighter attachment. If you stitch through the cardboard you can cover the knot with an appliqué.
Stitch each of the pages closed and press. Before we begin finishing the page edges check out this tutorial on how to hide your knots.
Blanket stitch the edges of each page with embroidery thread. 1. Make one stitch perpendicular to the edge and knot at the top. Insert your needle away from the edge and about 3/8 “ from the first stitch. 2. Bring the needle through the loop. 3. Pull the thread tight and repeat.
To assemble the book stack the pages. The loop should be on your right. Make sure your pages are centered and pin in place with several pins. Attach the bottom of page B to the inside of page A at the center with 1 or 2 stitches. Use thread that matches the blanket stitch on page B.
Stitch the center top as well. Notice you are stitching all the way through page B but just catching one layer of fabric of page A.
Using thread that matches the blanket stitch of page C, attach page C to B at the top and bottom center.
Stitch the top and bottom center of the heart to page C using thread matching the heart edge stitches. Stitch all the way through the heart but just catching the top layer of page C.
Finished! Add all your tiny projects, precious scraps and sewing tools and you are ready to travel.
If you make needle books I’d love to see. You can email photos to info at ann wood handmade dot com or use #annwoodhandmade or #annwoodpattern on instagram.
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When you subscribe a link to download the pdf version of the needle book tutorial will be emailed to you.
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Thank you so much! I am also of the Ziploc bags stuffed with supplies thrown into my gypsy bag. By the third day, the bags are mixed up and the scissors have poked a hole through its bag. I think this will be my weekend project. Thank you!
I have a much smaller needle holder that my grandmother made a hundred years ago. Closed , it looks like a tiny bonnet and it holds needles, pins and a thimble.
I love yours and am grateful for the pattern! Thank you for creating and sharing!
Would you consider sharing a picture of the one made by your grandmother?
Oh yes! Been looking for the perfect needle book and this fits my aesthetic so nicely! Love it, thanks so much for sharing!
I have a bundle of tiny fabric circles, all from the 1950’s. They are going to make fantastically sweet books!!
What a treasure this is! I definitely want to make one. Many thanks.
Thank you sooo much for sharing this,,,, it’s wonderful!!! I love it and it’s perfect for my quiet evening hand stitching.
I have only in the past year or so been using a lovely needlebook gifted to me many years ago. Before that my pins and needles were everywhere much to my husband’s dismay. I love using my needlebook. Not only does it keep my pointy tools corralled, but it reminds me of my friend every time I use it.
I just love how you’ve made this needlebook. I can’t wait to try out the lovely tutorial. Thank you!
This is gorgeous! And it’s so generous of you to share it, thank you!
What a beautiful pattern. Thank you for sharing. I can’t wait to make this. I love your updates on what you are making.
Plan to make one or two of these tomorrow. It is a good rainy day project. Thank you!
Thank you Ann. You are a great artist and a generous person.
Happy New Year to you and what a lovely sweet sewing book to have as my first project of 2019. Thank you so much for sharing; I have lots of lovely scraps which will be perfect for these.
I must say I love reading your posts. A hard week at work or feelings of inadequacy are banished to the clouds and replaced by thoughtfulness, creativity and warmth. Good for the soul!
Thank you x
Lovely, thankyou.
I love your gorgeous little sewing book, it certainly is the world’s sweetest! Thank you so much for your lovely tutorial, I can’t wait to make my own.
I have a needlebook I love, made of variously colored pieced of wool felt. I think I would like to make yours as well, so I can keep a book with my ribbon embroidery, one with my quilting, one with my sachet scraps…
Also, I love the French General scraps I recognize in your needlebook!
Hello Ann,
In recent years, I have the pleasure of discovering each week your creations. It is a great pleasure and also a source of inspiration for the little embroidered – sketched things that I do. But I never took the time to thank you for this meeting. So thank you Ann and continue to share with us. It is infinitely precious.
Michelle
Thanks you so much for this beautiful pattern! I can’t wait to search my stash of fabric, buttons and little saved bits of fabric!
Oh so beautiful! Brought back so many memories! My mom use to make these over thirty years ago and we were just talking about it, how to start making them again and here you are… Unreal! Thank you for confirming our next project for the gallery… Love your passion!
Thank you for the free pattern. My sister and I are going to make them while watching football this weekend!
Your needle book is perfect. This reminds me, my mom made one of wool like 80 years ago. Really. I remember it
I do need to make a needle book bc I carry my hexies around in a silly box with a tight ball of walnut shells for needles, which is fine but when I have needles with thread ready I need a nice soft page to file it.
I do take my box of hand sewing with me to doctor appointments for daddy, he has many, and hubbs just had surgery for glaucoma (some kind of handy teensy stent)
I will think about making a needle book. …. mom’s might be somewhere in my piles of treasures. One day I will find it.
Happy New Year Ann. I hope you are managing the snow storm safe and warm. I am in Northern Virginia and we got a lot of snow (a foot) last week, and yesterday it poured rain, whadda mess. Now the beastly cold air is arriving. I will take daddy to his heart doctor appointment and it will be 20 degrees + a wind chill so I will drop him off at the door
Keep perky and cozy
Thank you so much for sharing this fabulous pattern.
Oh how beautiful and awesome this needle book is! Love love it!! Thanks so much Ann!!
Merci, ce modèle est ravissant §§
[…] https://www.annwoodhandmade.com/the-worlds-sweetest-needle-book-a-free-sewing-pattern/ […]
I made your needle book I just took down the measurements I did not put in for your pattern but I love it.
Thanks so much for the beautiful idea
Dear Ann, happy new year! Thank you for this generous share. Thank you as always for your beautiful blog, i so look forward to my Friday instalments, it is like a breath of fresh air, your creativity! Its been about 5 years now and you have kept me company from London to Malaysia to Denmark and now the beautiful Lake District in the UK. Just wanted to let you know how you touch others lives x
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Thank you, such a sweet gift.
I. Am so pleased i have subscribed to your website. Thanks i love sewing with bits of fabric
This needle book is so cute, I am going to make it as a cloth book for my Granddaughters 2nd birthday, by telling a story about her, using vintage fabrics, scraps of lace and old buttons that I have collected over the years.
I can’t wait to receive more ideas, thank you so much Ann
Thank you so much for this! It is just what I was looking for, simple, cute, easy to make. What a great way to begin the new year!
eek! so cute! i tried to have the pdf sent to my email if i signed up but then it said i’d already signed up (help!) can you help ann? can’t wait to make this!! xoxo
Hi Lori! Thank you! You are on the mailing list but it looks like they are not making it to your inbox – try adding – info@annwoodhandmade.com to your contacts list.
And check your spam folder too – they might be hanging out there.
I’ll forward the email with the download link for the needle book sewing pattern in a second.
I love needlebooks and this is wonderful. Can not wait to make one or two or….
Thank you for the titorial. I love needlebooks.
Thank you for this pattern. I love to hand sew and this little book spoke to me. It is something my hands can do. I look forward to checking out your work. I love what I have seen so far. Thank you for the information and inspiration. Valerie
What a truly sweet needlebook! I am involved in a bit of historical sewing with a local living history museum and your book seems to be a mixture of the old & nostalgic with more modern & new. I do love it, thank you for sharing! Have you checked out more historical needlebooks? I love the old “housewives” or “hussifs” from around the world centuries ago.
I love your little needlebook and I will make this!
Thank you so much for the tutorial.
For travel or even for walking down stairs or outside I have found a little sewing box from prym.
It is like a luchbox or a layered box for meat cuts, you can leave layers out to make it smaller. And when it is in my hobby room it is stacked up.
This is for my traveling and walking outside with my needle work.
I love it very much, it has a handle so its easy to pick it up.
https://www.johnlewis.com/prym-click-box-system/p301729
Just lóve the little needlebook! Thanks
Hello, my name is skye and I was wanting to ask your permission to use your design for your needle book as a base design for a needle book I will be making and selling. I would give credit to you for your base design. Please contact me via my email at garrettsc455@gmail.com if you approve my request. Thanks!
I love little needlecases – (and have more than any woman needs!) and I have the first one I stitched when I was a little girl from a felt kit – in the shape of a black cat. Your beautiful needlecase is going to be a must-make for me now – a great way to use treasured little scraps. Thank you, Gill
My nine year old daughter and I will be making one each of these for our afternoon handiwork! Thank you!
[…] is a sweet needle case on Ann Wood’s site that would make a great gift. Needle book pattern. Even if your friends don’t sew or make crafts, everyone can use needle and […]
Excited to receive me order
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[…] Source: Annwoodhandmade […]
Thank you so very much for everything your doing. Thank you for your free patterns to, it helps when your on a fixed income. Again thank you, Karen Hopkins
Ann, I am a subscriber and would like a pdf of the needle book tutorial, please.
Thank you!
I have made many of the Woebegone trees….they are so loved. And one of the dastardly owls, which came out small, due to my pattern error, but I love it and have another started.
I love your work very much.
Sharon
I just found you on Pinterest ‼️ I am thrilled to find you because you love making the same kinds of thins I do with the types of materials I’d as well…. Where have you been…. lollol
What caught my eye was the needle book, going to start gathering materials today to make one ,or two ❣️
Thank you for sharing your talent with others .
Looking forward to your newsletter too.
[…] Er zijn heel veel voorbeelden en tutorials te vinden voor het maken van naaldenboekjes; hier bijvoorbeeld vind je een hele mooie en uitgebreide: the world’s sweetest needle book : a free sewing pattern. […]
I made two of your sweet needlebooks. The first was my own shabby chic style and I modified it and added a vinyl pocket using the vinyl on a bed in a bag storage bag that I had laying around in the garage. Took me a bit to figure out how to quilt edge the vinyl and attach it, but that was half the fun. I learned on my first book, and improved my technique on the second book, which I made for my bestie as she just retired! I appliqued a wool initial on the front and added pom/pom trim. Also wool appliqued a scissor holder from another pattern I had, and attached ribbon to tie it in place. They turned out so adorable! Thank you so very much for the amazing tutorial! I plan to increase the size slightly for a book for my daughter. So much fun!!!!
J ‘adore ce modèle de porte-aiguilles !
This is the most adorable of all the offerings out there, thank you! I am making one this weekend.
Thanks for the pattern it’s what I was looking for as a gift for my daughters and friends
Simplesmente lindo!!! Obrigada pelo padrão !!!
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I don’t currently have access to a printer. What are the measurements of the templates?
Hey There
This looks amazing! Do you think I could substitute heavy interfacing for the cardboard? I’m making 2 for my granddaughters who want to learn to sew and they tend to haul everything outside and leave it lying around sometimes. I’m afraid it might get soggy. Also the little tent setup with the stove is going to be next as they love these little things. Thank you so much for your free patterns!
[…] now showing you what it has turned into – a hand-sewn needle book. I found this pattern on the site of Ann Wood… but you really don’t need a pattern, just imagination. I […]
Thank you so much for the sweet needle book!
IDK if it’s just me, but the cover sheet does not include the text. Is it possible there is an updated version?
Have an awesome day!
Hi Katy. I sent a response to your emails regarding the needle book pdf yesterday – did you not receive it? I also sent you the pdf as an attachment. I was not able to recreate the problem you described.
It did not send me the tutorial for the needle book. I checked my spam as well. Can you send it to me please
Thank you for creating this pattern, Ann. I have a long work week and this is my favorite “go to” project when I need to de-stress and be mindful.