A Little More than It's A Lot!

If you make the Flying Geese and Saw Tooth Star Blocks from the It's A Lot Quilt as shown in the pattern, you will be left with some little triangles of your chosen fabrics.  Set them aside!  I'm assuming if you are interested in my work you like scrappy and those little triangles can create the perfect front panel for a little sewing kit. 

I made this little sewing kit holder to be the perfect size to hold everything you need to work on the needle turn appliqué components of the It's A Lot Quilt.  It will fit your needles, thread, some small snips and some cut pieces ready to appliqué to your quilt. If you aren't making the quilt you can still use the tutorial to make a little appliqué kit but substitute the front panel.

Please note that this is a little free tutorial and some sewing experience is assumed. The instructions are meant to be quick and easy.  In my quilt patterns I walk you through every step required!

A Little More Needle Turn Appliqué Kit

You will need:

• Wool felt - 4" x 5 1/4"
• 6" zipper (no metal teeth as you will cut through the zip)
• Stiff iron on / fusible interfacing - 2 x panels of 4" x 5 1/4"
• Elastic (optional)
• 2 x fabric panels of 4" x 5 1/4" for the back of the kit and the lining of the zipper pocket (flower fabric in these instructions)
• 4 x fabric panels of 3 1/2" x 5 3/4" for the zipper pocket.  (I cut 2 of these from the flower fabric and two from a gingham scrap which formed the pocket lining.)
• Scraps from your It's A Lot Quilt to make the front panel (finished size 4" x 5 1/4")
• Perle 8 thread if you wish to add hand stitching

Front Panel:

Take your triangles you have trimmed from your blocks and stitch pairs together to create Half Square Triangles (HST). Make 12 HST.

Press open and trim the HSTs to 1 3/4" square.  (I found that some of my HSTs were too small to make this size, as we are working with imprecise scraps cut from other blocks.  I trimmed those to 1 1/2" and will include them in another scrappy project at some point.)

Lay out you HST into a pleasing pattern and stitch together. Trim your panel so that it is 4" x 5 1/4" and fuse the interfacing to the back of the panel.  

If you wish to add hand stitching do that now.  I emphasised the diamond shapes with my hand stitching.

Zipper Pocket Panel:

Make a zipper sandwich as follows:

• place 1 pouch lining piece (3 1/2" x 5 3/4") right side up
• place zipper (teeth up) on top the lining piece
• place pouch outer piece (3 1/2' by 5 3/4") right side down on top of the zipper

Pin the three layers together making sure they line up neatly and then stitch together using your zipper foot.  Press the lining and outer fabric away from your zipper and topstitch to hold in place.

Repeat these steps for the other side of the zip noting that when you line up your zipper it will have one side of the pouch already attached.

Trim your zipper panel to 4" x 5 1/4".  Note - I purposefully offset the zipper as I find this prevents the thread or snips from falling out of the pocket when you open it.  Baste your zipper ends together.  You can see how my zipper is offset and how I have based my zipper end that is not zipped together in the photo below. 

Baste the back panel (4" x 5 1/4") of the zipper pocket to the front of the zipper pocket using a 1/8" seam.  This baste stitch will be hidden by the construction seams in the next steps.

Construction:

Fuse the interfacing to your back panel (4' x 5 1/4") mine is the flower fabric. If you want to add elastic to hold the kit closed, baste the elastic to the back panel approximately 1" from the left edge as shown in the photo above. Take care to make sure the basting stitches are 1/8" from the edge of the panel so they will be hidden by the construction seams.

Stitch the front panel (HSTs) the back panel (flower fabric) and press open.

Stitch the wool felt panel to pocket panel with a 1/4" seam and press open.

Pin the inside and outside panels together as shown below and stitch together using a 1/4" seam around the outside of the panels making sure to leave an opening on the right to turn the kit right side out.  Before turning, trim the corners to reduce bulk.

Turn the kit right side out and poke the corners out.  Use a ladder stitch to close the opening and voila you have a little needle turn appliqué kit.  The wool felt acts as a needle holder / pin cushion and the pocket will hold all you need for small projects.  I love that the front of mine used scraps from my quilt because I hate to waste scraps!!

If you make one of these kits please use the #alittlemoreappliquekit so that I can see your work.