Ruth from the studio has made this really cute Liberty Crochet Case for her mum using one of the prints from the new Emily Belle Quilting Cottons.
Ruth tells me about her lovely make: “My Mum has always been a keen knitter but in recent years has converted to crochet. She is currently working on a ‘mystery blanket’ where she receives a set of instructions with the corresponding wool each month, rather like our quilt block of the month. It’s a great way of learning new techniques and building up a blanket which I guess could be quite a daunting task if you took it on in one go. Mum has lots of crochet hooks, needles and scissors and it’s been on my list for a long time to make her a case where she can keep the ones she uses most often together – it also makes them easy to transport when she comes to babysit for my children!”
“I came across the SewCanShe website when looking for face mask patterns during the first lockdown. I found the instructions easy to follow with useful pictures so I started having a look at the other free patterns and found the one for the crochet case which I thought would be perfect for Mum.”
“With Mum’s birthday coming up and the arrival of the new quilting cottons, it seemed a perfect opportunity to finally make the case. The Emily Belle fabrics all looked so beautiful stacked up in the studio it was quite hard to choose the colour but I thought the Evening Sky A looked smart. I wanted a contrasting lining so chose the Yolande Blossom C as the colours looked lovely next to each other. My colleague had just cut some ribbons of Strawberry Thief R which looked perfect for a pop of colour for the piping and was just the right size! The Tana Lawn was good for the piping as I found it quite flexible for going round the corners.
I was going to use a fusible fleece interfacing but I already had a piece of the Heirloom 80/20 wadding so decided to use that. As it wasn’t fusible, I had my first go at machine quilting and was delighted with the result! I marked the fabric really carefully with an air-erasable pen and sewed it even more carefully to keep the lines straight! I used the walking foot on my sewing machine to feed the quilt sandwich through evenly.”
“The pattern called for some sort of mesh fabric to use as the holder for the crochet hooks. I had some fine net (which had once been a dressing-up Princess skirt!) in my stash so was able to use that with some of the Emily Belle outer fabric as binding to neaten and strengthen the edges. I also added a couple more spaces for scissors and needles. The pattern also advised using a small piece of vinyl to stop the hooks sliding out the top of the case when it was closed. I used a folder out of the stationery cupboard for this! I found the piping tricky to apply as I couldn’t seem to get my sewing machine to sew close enough even with a zip foot so I ended up sewing that by hand. Also, I decided to use stitch in PVC coated textile magnets instead of magnetic handbag closures as I didn’t want them to show. I hadn’t anticipated that the magnet would stick to the needle plate on my sewing machine though meaning I had to hand stitch this as well!
I’m really pleased with the finished case. The pattern was easy to follow and I was able to make a couple of small changes to make it more suitable for Mum. The quilting cotton was lovely to work with and gave a really nice look to the finished product. Mum was delighted with her birthday present!”
