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One for DPNs, one for Options.

Materials: Lots of random cotton and upholstery fabrics and thread. Interfacing. Cord / rick-rack. Buttons. Grosgrain ribbon. Pattern: loosely based off of the Roll-Your-Own Needle Case in Stitch 'n' Bitch.

Time: One day.

Cost: $20 for the fabric, maybe?

One reaches a point when a Ziploc baggie stuffed with miscellaneous double-pointed and circular needles becomes an extraordinarily ineffective storage solution. I figured this out right at about the time when I fell in love with KnitPicks' Options needles, which only added to the clutter and confusion. I find their default case to be ugly, clunky, and overpriced, so I figured that some custom-made holders were in order.

Cataloging my Ziploc revealed that I owned multiple sets of needles in some sizes, none in others, and a bunch that I'd completely forgotten about. As much as a gigundo holder that would fit everything initially appealed to me, it would be big and impractical. After some more thought and a judicious amount of surfing the web, I decided to make one small holder for my DPNs and a larger one to hold my nickel-plated circs of all sizes (both one-piece smaller sizes and interchangeables). I roughly followed the directions for the Roll-Your-Own Needle Case in Stitch 'n' Bitch, but spent some quality time with a ruler, my needle stash, and a calculator, and made a bunch of sketches and schematics to custom-size and position the pockets to fit the needles I had (or planned to someday have).

I had plenty of spare fabric, so I decided to place a certain amount of faith in my schematics and see what happened -- I could always make new ones if they didn't fit, or if my space estimates had been all wrong. This was actually the case with the DPN holder pictured above. I forgot to incorporate a part of the seam allowance, so the needles poked out half an inch above the top of the holder -- and it's not a good holder if it only works in an upright position. So, I improvised using a thick strip of grosgrain ribbon to attach the flap to the holder itself. It's snazzy, and works perfectly.

Here you can see how the pockets are sized in proportion to the needles. I also used my machine's embroidery function to label the size on each pocket. It's not the most elegant (note loose thread ends all over the place), but definitely does the job.

The Options holder took more conceptualizing. It had to hold circs of varying lengths from sizes 0-4, cords of various sizes, ends and keys, and needle tips. My original drawings also had it as, like, two feet tall, which was ridiculous. With a little schematic rejiggering I ended up designing it to fold in three, which makes for a surprisingly compact package.

I spent some time playing around with lightweight vinyl pockets. I'd heard awful things about how horrible vinyl is to sew, but with a walking foot and the proper needle and thread sizes it wasn't too bad. I did, however, have a very difficult time cutting the stuff evenly, and I'm impatient. After a bit of experimental tugging, it seemed likely that the lightweight vinyl would stretch and perhaps tear, so I decided to go with less fancy but more serviceable cotton pockets. Because there's so much going on with this case, I sandwiched an extra layer of iron-on interfacing in the middle.

Can you tell that I tend to work mostly with small needles? I plan on filling in the empty pockets eventually, though I have a hard time imagining what I'll use the size 17s for these days.

Storage solution: complete!

Great fabric choices - what bold colours and prints! I love the embroidered numbers... better than what I have - no numbers at all. My current case is overflowing and I've been thinking that I need a smaller case for my DPNs but I'm not sure that I'm up to the task of making a case myself.