Victorian Pincushion on spindle stand: 5 – assembling the needlebook

I’ve embroidered and assembled the Victorian pincushion on its turned spindle stand from a chart pack from Victoria Sampler, and now I’m starting to assemble the needlebook that will go with it.

First, I made a template of the front area of the needlebook from tissue paper by placing the stitching and the tissue paper on my light box and gently drawing the outline in pencil onto the paper.

Using the template, I cut the front and back stitched areas out (allowing a centimetre seam allowance on each) and a front and back lining piece from cream satin, again with a one centimetre seam allowance. I then cut two  iron-on interlining pieces to the exact size of the template, and ironed them to the reverse side of each piece of satin. The inner page of the needlebook was cut from white felt to the size of the template and then trimmed to be an eighth of an inch smaller all round, so that it won’t stick out at the edges when the needlebook is closed. I also cut two thick card pieces to the exact template size, to stiffen the covers of the needlebook.

I temporarily tacked the seam allowance of the satin to the reverse on both lining pieces.

I laced the front and back stitching over the stiff card with strong quilting thread.

This is the back panel of the needlebook once laced over the card.

Placing the stitching and the lining wrong sides together, I slip-stitched them together all the way round.

Finally, I removed the tacking stitches from the lining piece.

Holding the back piece, felt inner ‘page’ and front piece together, aligned carefully, I threaded narrow silk ribbon through the three eyelets. The two outer ones I tied in a small bow, and the centre one I looped through, knotted three inches from the loop, and then tied a bow at the end.

This shows what I did with the ribbon:

The needlebook can now be opened, and needles placed in the ‘page’ inside.

This is such a pretty needlebook, which can now be hung on the pincushion stand from a pin placed in the cushion pad on the top.

Now I’ve just got the ‘strawberry’ to stitch and assemble, and the whole project will be complete!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Victorian Pincushion on spindle stand: 4 – stitching the needlebook

I’m currently stitching this gorgeous pincushion on a wooden base from a Victoria Sampler chart booklet in my stash. Having stitched the pincushion itself, I’m now stitching the smalls – starting with the little needlebook.

This pretty needlebook takes motifs from the pincushion itself, as well as a Bargello wave along the bottom. Three little square eyelets at the top will become the method of making the ‘pages’ of the needlebook hold together – I’ll be threading ribbon through those at the final stage.

This didn’t take long to do, and I was quite pleased with how it turned out…..until I realised just as I was finishing the stitching that I had miscounted somehow, and made it eight fabric threads too long! I think it was when I was working out the placement of the little pearl beads.

Not being a perfectionist, rather than unpick loads and do it correctly, I decided to make my needlebook just a bit longer than the Victoria sampler one! It just means that I have to make sure the reverse side of the needlebook is adapted to be exactly the same shape as this front panel, and adjust the shaping when I assemble it.

It was easy to make the adjustment for the extra length on the reverse side, as there is a lot of ‘blank space’ between the eyelets and the main design.

Shhh!! No-one will notice…..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~