Circular Needle Storage Solution

When you have a lot of circular needles there is always the question on how to store them. Some people prefer them stored neatly in a box, but I always liked them be hanging down from somewhere which - supposedly - is better for the cables. However, for me this usually leads to a certain entanglement of cables ... plus I always have to search hard for the needle size I'm looking for.
So when I glimpsed a gorgeous solution while watching this video by Roxanne Richardson (her circular needle storage can be seen at minute 32:30), I wanted something similar for myself.
Unfortunately, I'm not much of a seamstress - and I am really bad at handling my sewing machine. But this weekend, I finally sat down to do it.
Here's a (really short) tutorial on how to do something similar. Please note that I'm completely new to sewing (any experienced seamstress would have cried out laughing if they saw me handling my fabric and use the sewing machine). So there are probably quite a few things that could be done better. Plus you can see that my seams are far from looking professional.

The piece has two compartments for each needle size. A long one (made from the light green fabric) and on top of it a shorter one in red fabric (sewn on top of the green one) and attached by the crosswise seams. The shorter compartment can be used for needles that are shorter than 40 cm (e.g. Addi Socks Wonders or CrasyTrios).




This work by Knitting and so on is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Materials

• fabric: I used one light greeen piece that was 2x20 cm wide and 2x50 cm high (both plus seam allowance) and another red piece that was 2x10 cm wide and 60 cm high (also plus seam allowance). In fact I wanted a "recycling" project, so I used old T-shirts.
• 9 buttons 
• a paint marker (to mark the buttons with the needle sizes)
• needle and thread to attach the buttons (or glue ...)
• a dowel and a cord 
• a sewing machine and a pressing iron

How-To

1. Cut out a piece of fabric that is twice as long and twice as wide as you want your finished piece to be (plus seam allowance). One of my construction goal was to avoid seams along the side of the piece (because I thought that the needles my be caught in that seam each time you put it in). That's why I chose to use a piece of fabric that was twice the intended width. I wanted a needle holder that was 50 cm high and 20 cm wide - so I cut out a rectangle that was 100 long and 40 cm wide (plus about 1 cm at each edge) - light green on the photos.
2. Fold the piece in half lengthwise (right sides together) and sew it along the long seam. (Now you have a long tube that has intended width). Place the piece with the seam right in the middle and press the seam flat. Turn it right sides out. Now the side with the seam will be the "wrong" side or inside.
3. Fold the piece along the shorter side (right sides together) and sew along the short edge. Press the seam and turn it right sides out. Press.
4. Cut out a piece of fabric that is twice as wide as the strip in contrast color and about 10 cm longer than the intended height of the finished piece. In my case this was piece of red fabric 20 cm wide and 60 cm long.
5. Fold that piece in half lenghwise (right sides together) and sew along the long edge.  Place the piece with the seam right in the middle and press the seam flat. Turn it right sides out. Now you have another (narrower) tube of fabric.
6. Lay the smaller piece on top of the bigger one, with 5 cm overhanging on each side. Pin in place. I chose to place it a bit off the center.  
7. Fold the overhanging 5 cm back and handstitch in place - on the top and the bottom.
8. Now sew a few seams right across the piece - I used a thread in a contrasting color and started with the first about 1.5mm from the top and continued with a distance of 2.5cm, increasing to 3cm towards the lower end. That way, I did 16 crosswise seams, which gave me 16 compartments - plus one at the top to place a dowel for the hanging "mechanism".
9. Sew buttons on and mark them with the needle sizes. (Actually, I only noticed too late that the space of the compartments was to small to sew the buttons, so I glued them to the fabric.)
10. Draw a cord throught the compartment at the top. and place a dowel inside for stability ... and it's ready to hang.

I do like the finished piece even though it looks far from professional.
But it a) does the job and b) was made with materials I had at home :)
If I ever do something similar again, I will ...

• ... use sturdier and non-stretchy fabric - if you are a sewing newbie (like me), stretchy fabric is a nightmare
• ... use interfacing or something similar to stiffen the piece
• ... sew on the buttons before sewing the crossways seams - and use smaller buttons :)
• .... sew neater seams, of course ...

Knitting Gauge Ruler - Cut Out Template

I don't like swatching and I don't like to count gauge. This is especially clear in early patterns ... where I rarely even listed gauge or the size of the finished product. In fact, quite a few of my patterns are designed explicitely with the view of not knitting a swatch (e.g. these fingerless gloves, these slippers or this hat). They contain instructions like "repeat these rows until the piece is wide enough to fit around your wrists" or similar.

That said, there are also times where swatching and knitting gauge are extremely important - for example when you're knitting a bigger piece that you want to fit (e.g. this top and this tunic). If you skip the swatching and measuring gauge step here, you will probably end up with a piece that does not fit - which basically means that you've been knitting an oversized swatch.

Until recently, I used my measuring tape or a piece of squared paper with a 5 by 5 cm cut out rectangle. Not very neat, but it did the job. Then I saw on social media that there where specialized tools to do this (just google "gauge ruler" to find them) - and nice ones, too. So, I wanted something similar myself. And of course, I wanted to make it rather than just buy it.

This work by Knitting and so on is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.



Here are two downloadable PDFs with cut out templates for a gauge ruler. One in A4 size and one in letter size.
(Edit: 03.10.2021: updated link to PDF - somehow google seems to have changed the links on GoogleDrive so the old links weren't working anymore)


Instructions

1. Print out template on cardstock or paper of the appropriate size. What kind of material you use is basically up to your printer and what kind of material it can handle. Make sure to use "actual size" option.
2. Check size of your print out. Inside the black lines of the cross, it should measure exactly 10 cm.
3. Cut out the cross in the middle using a utility knife - just inside the black lines (see picture on the right). Cut out around the octagon; I used scissors for that, but a blade or utility knife will do as well. There are three gauge rulers on one template. So you can have a bit of practice cutting them out - I certainly needed that :)

Use it to count the stitches of your swatch.