Needle Minders

I stitched one more tiny Snoopy yesterday - the WWI Ace Pilot. Today I made the three little stitching projects into needle minders. I had watched several YouTube videos on the subject and synthesized the best of most of them for my own projects.

First, I ironed light interfacing onto the backs of the stitching. This kept the small pieces from stretching out of shape and also provided something between the shiny button form and the stitching - so the shininess wouldn't show through.

OMG! They're so cute!

Before pressing everything together, I removed the metal button loop from the button back. Afterwards, I glued a rare earth magnet onto the back with E6000 glue. I'm letting it cure for 24 hours. I bought the magnets on Ebay. They weren't very expensive and the shipping was only $4 CAD from Germany. Ceramic magnets can be used but they are very brittle and will leave marks on the fabric unless coated with something.

I'm hoping to find some steel washers for the back onto which I'll likely glue onto a button for ease of grabbing and removal. I bought some stainless steel washers today but they don't stick to the magnet well enough. I'm cheap so I'm hoping to not have to use a second rare earth magnet for the back.

This is what the needle minders will look like in action:

Now I'm on the lookout for more cute stitching that is around 28 sts wide or tall. I like stitching on the 28ct Monaco cloth and have lots of it in my stash. If the stitching is only an inch wide, it fits very nicely onto the 1.5" button blank. Next time there's a notions sale at Fabricland, I'll be buying more of those blanks.