I’ve finished embroidering the scissor keeper from Carolyn Pearce’s book ‘Home Sweet Home Workbox‘, and now I’m assembling it. Carolyn’s instructions are very clear for this item.
I cut a piece of thin wadding to back the embroidery with, and a piece of stiff interlining, both 6cm x 3cm. The two pence piece is to use as a weight inside the scissor keeper. I pressed the seam allowances over the piece of interlining, including the corners, to make it easier to get a nice tight finish.
I folded in the corners and slip stitched them together. Notice that I didn’t stitch right up to the corner point – otherwise I’d pull the piece out of shape.
Here are all four corners mitred. I also slip stitched the straight sides to the interlining, but I didn’t photograph that.
I made a fine cord from 30 inches of 10 strand silk, doubled to be 15 inches long, and then twisted up, and folded back on itself so that I had a finished cord around 7 inches long. Then I knotted the ends together to make a loop about three inches long, and stitched it together through the ends to make it secure, then attached it to the scissor keeper in the centre of one side (making sure that that was the top edge!).
I threaded some beads onto quilting thread, doubling it back around the end bead, then attached the length of beads to the bottom edge of the scissor keeper.
I slip stitched around the three open sides with beige sewing thread, pushing the coin in as I started to stitch along the final side. Finally, I worked Knotted pearl stitch around the edge.
Here is the finished scissor keeper. It’s come out really neat, and I can see me using this before the rest of the project is finished 🙂
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Janet Granger's Blog 
Janet, I bought this book a while ago but haven’t started making anything from it yet. When I finish the embroidered bear from another one of Pearce’s books, I’m going to start with the scissors keeper. Yours is beautiful.
I’m tempted to do the embroidered bear, too…one day!
The scissor fob is adorable! I work as a costumer for the Theater Dept. at a nearby College and have been using lenghts of ribbon to mark my scissors. This seems a more elegant alternative.
That’s really pretty, and your embroidery is as always a treat to view, but I have a question . . . how are the scissors to use, now? Does the fob-and-cord get in the way?
The fob and cord doesn’t get in the way. I wondered if it would, too, as I don’t usually use a scissor fob on my scissors. And if I drop them (hopefully I won’t!), the weighted fob should mean that it would be the fob that hits the floor first, not the points of my lovely scissors!
Thanks. Interesting point about the scissors now being weighted to not hit point-first.