Housewife update

My replacement sewing machine foot pedal arrived so I was able to finish the housewife I showed you the start of last month.

I followed the Patchwork and Quilting Sewing Kit Purse pattern by and large, but I added my favourite tatted edging all round the outside on top of the binding. Being red on red I'm afraid it isn't clear in the photo.

I also inserted the zip a bit differently to suggested. It is a double ended heavy duty zip as that was what I had to hand.

Inside I reduced the size of the needlecase to allow space for a tin, and rounded the edges to match the tin's corners and the shape of the cover. I also added a strip of bias binding over the bottom of the pocket to reduce bulk (because I didn't need to turn the pocket edge over.)

The removable (on velcro) contents. The pincushion is almost exactly like the pattern. The needlecase has added tatted decoration. The flower is just rings with lots of long picots worked close together. The flower centre is just loose colonial knots embroidered onto the top of the tatting. The green is a long length of spiral tatting stitched down in places. (Spiral tatting is just a chain where instead of using a double stitch you use either the first or the second half of the double stitch repeatedly, twisting the chain in the direction it wants to go so that it forms a spiral.)

The tin is an Altoid tin. I have covered it in a scrap of deerskin and glued a strip of velcro to the base. I find these little covered tins very convenient to hold small items, thimbles, stitch markers for knitting, small buttons and so on. These so easily get lost among larger items.