Needlepoint Eyeglass Case

This is my finished STITCH & ZIP preassembled needlepoint eyeglass case, copyright 2010 by Alice Peterson Co.  This design is called Paisley Jacobean.

If I could do one thing different, it would be to use the half cross stitch instead of the basketweave and continental stitches, because they warped even a small canvas like this enough to make the case lopsided.  I did use a wet cloth and iron, and stretched it out, but it's hard to undo something like that.  I suspect that with it being an eyeglass case, they recommend using full coverage stitches to avoid leaving naked canvas on the back that can scratch lenses, although the canvas provided with this project is a soft fabric as opposed to the harder, plastic kind.

The soft, fuzzy material on the back of the case had a lip to it at the top that I had to tack down with hand-stitching, because my sunglasses kept getting caught under it.  That step was not included in the instructions, but now I know to do that in the future before giving these out as gifts.  Not being able to get one's glasses out of the case easily is an annoying enough problem to make someone not use it.

With that said, this is an easy project that can be completed in a day.  I love the pre-printed canvas.  The only thing I would caution against is jumping into the needlepoint without first separating out the colors and studying the design.  There were several purple colors that were very close in hue, and I had to rip out a bunch of stitches because I picked up the wrong color when the lighting was bad.  Despite being a fast and easy crafts project, you still need to pay attention to what you are doing and think ahead.

Finished Needlepoint Pillow

After many interruptions and distractions, I finally turned my "Floral Splendor" needlepoint project into a pillow.

I was never able to get the distortion stretched completely out of the finished canvas, so I had to sew it as a parallelogram.  I should have turned the cover inside out to examine how well I lined up the cording with the canvas and fabric before sewing, but I did not think of it, and so the final result was cord and lip sticking out further in some locations than others along the edge.

I also discovered that I do not have a sewing machine foot that is narrow enough for me to machine sew along the edges where cording is involved, so the pillow had to be hand sewn on top of the basting.  Basting is becoming my friend, because it saves me from a lot of pin pricks.

Also, this time I was smart enough to dig around in the kit for instructions on how to cut and assemble the backing, so there is enough overlap that I did not have to sew the back pocket together.  It's always a learning experience.  The problem is that it takes so long to complete just the needlepoint portion of a project this big that I forget what I learned from the previous time I attempted to construct a pillow.  That's why I write it down here.  Now I just need to remember to read my own blog before attempting to construct another pillow.

On another note, I ordered some smaller needlepoint projects online to keep my hands busy in the meantime, and one of them was a needlepoint coin purse.  When the box arrived, it contained the bag for the kit and the label, but no contents!  There was no coin purse, no thread, no needle, and no instructions.  The glue on the bottom of the bag had failed, and the contents must have fallen out in the warehouse.  I had to call Amazon to straighten things out.  The seller gave me a refund, but couldn't send me a replacement.  Oh well.  Sometimes buying products can be more of a hassle than it is worth, but at least the issue got resolved.