Cottage Garden Needlebook

Here, at long last, is my Cottage Garden needlebook, made up and ready for service. It is the cover project from Inspirations #53, designed by Kris Richards. I bought the kit in 2007, started the embroidery shortly thereafter, and finished the stitching early last year. 18 months ago!!

It's been languishing because I wanted to change the inside design to add pockets for needle packets, but there wasn't really enough fabric in the kit. And I really liked the pink and cream yarn dye that came in the kit:

But finally I realized that with a basement full of fabric, I could surely find something else that would also be nice. I came up with this romantic print from the Mary Rose collection by Quilt Gate:

The needlebook measures about 6" x 6" closed. I'm using it to keep all my milliner's needles in one place. So I added three 2" x 3" pockets to the inside front...

...and the inside back:

A nice thick wool felt came with the kit for the pages, which I cut to 5" x 10". It stays well inside the cover, which was my intention!

There is a three loop closure made from ribbon and beads, which was only partially successful. My first plan was to use elastic. That would have been better, but I couldn't find it in the right colour. Next time!

With this design, the back cover is just as nice as the front:

So, there it is, only my second finish for 2014, and it's already August! Time to pull up my socks and finish off a couple more that are close to the end. Now the challenge is to avoid pulling out another Inspirations kit from my stash until I get at least a few more things done!