The crochet hook holder - finally!

This project is long overdue! We bought a set of crochet hooks off eBay ages ago and whilst they are very useful, the plastic sleeve they came in was very basic and had one fundamental flaw! The crochet hooks weren't secured in it, so the little blighters kept mounting an escape mission! So finally, after finding all the crochet hooks emptied out at the bottom of a bag for one more time, we decided to make our very own crochet hook holder.

We decided to interface all the materials, as what we didn't want, was a floppy holder!
 

As always, we learnt a few things making this project! Firstly, before we even picked up a pair of scissors this time, we drew out a plan of what we were trying to achieve - with little diagrams with measurements on! This made a huge difference to me, being able to picture in my mind what we were aiming for!

Secondly, velcro! A few very valuable lessons learnt on this one! The crochet hook roll is secured with a velcro tab. To position the velcro, rather than use pins (which are almost impossible to get through the velcro anyway!) we draw around the velcro where we want it to be. Then I use that as a guide to sew the velcro in position. So off I went to the sewing machine and sewed around the edges of the velcro. For some strange reason I thought I'd sew around it twice to make sure it was secure enough. What I'd actually effectively done, is created a perforation all the way round! When we stuck the two velcro bits together and tried to pull them apart, they stayed together and the velcro just tore off from the material, leaving just the edges in position! Hmmm! We also wondered if this whole velcro disaster was in part due to the fact we hadn't changed back to a normal size needle from our last project - we still had a heavy duty needle in the machine which no doubt creates bigger holes when you sew!

We changed to a regular sized needle and then, we then dug out some more velcro, which was wider than the first but that was good! That would cover the mess that was left from our first attempt! So off I went to the sewing machine again. This time, when I started to sew, something wasn't right! The cotton looked like it was flapping in the wind. I checked whether I'd threaded the machine correctly etc and I had. Hmmm, what could it be? So I sewed a few more stitches slowly, then we realised all the cotton was doing is wrapping itself around the needle. Then we realised. The needle was sticky! The velcro we were using was the sticky backed one! We'd bought it from LIDL's ages ago and we hadn't realised it had a sticky backing. It does say on the packet that it can also be sewn but we certainly won't be using it again! So we then routed around to find some more velcro. We only had black left, so black it was! There is a black stripe in the patterned material, so we didn't think it'd look too out of place.

Talking of stripes! We also made sure when we were chopping out the materials, that all the stripes matched up. So when we placed the binding on the pocket and the top flap, we made sure all the stripes matched up with each other. This might sound basic but we feel it made a real difference to the overall appearance of the holder.
 

As for crochet? Nope we don't crochet! We use the crochet hook for everything but! We find they are invaluable for reaching those hard to get corners when turning things the right way round. We also use them for assisting in stuffing those hard to reach areas!