Boro Thread & Needle Holder

My days in these early months of 2024 have called for plenty of portable hand stitching.  To be working something simple with my fingers is always mindful and provides moments of calm on even the most frenetic days.  This neat idea for a thread holder with pre-threaded needles recently caught my eye and using some of my much loved recycled Japanese fabrics and thread felt a very fitting choice of materials.

I've found my Boro and Sashiko stitching over the winter months and making neat even stitches very satisfying - I'll come clean and say this is so me!  The traditional fabrics for both techniques are usually repurposed would have been cotton or hemp and invariably blue - indigo dyed cloth was the cheapest available.  

Silk from recycled Kimonos would have occasionally been used for both techniques and I was lucky to have acquired an amazing stock of recycled Kimono fabric pieces last year from Jasuin - owner Jayne has long supplied me with beautiful textiles.  And so I gathered a little collection of blues from my stash and cut and placed them on a shaped piece of blue cotton backing - my stitches were made in an off-white Japanese stranded cotton.

Sashiko stitches are traditionally super even as multiple stitches are made onto a long needle with each needle pass.  Boro stitches are more organic and tend to be stitched with individual stitches as the needle is passing through multiple layers and traditionally there are many lines of stitch, used out of necessity to keep ageing fabrics intact.  

Kimono silks are very densly woven, so I only needed to stitch down the fabric edges - which surprisingly fray very little.  I then placed my stitched piece face down on a piece of blue wool felt and machine stitched around the edge, leaving a gap for turning.  I then trimmed back the excess wool felt, snipped the curved sections of the seam and turned through the gap, hand stitching this closed and machine top stitching around the edge.

I opted to make the circular end of the roll with an English scrap tradition - I like to mix up traditions!  The Suffolk Puff originates from around the 1600s when used with scrap fabrics and stuffed with wool to make quilts.  

I turned in a small seam on a circle of fabric and gathered with a small running stitch in a strong beading thread.  I then cut a piece of wool felt and placed inside before pulling the gathering thread tightly and securing with a few stitches into the back of the puff.

I then hand stitched a completed puff on each side of the roll, starting at the short straight edge on the body piece and ending when I felt a sufficient gap remained  for the thread reel to be inserted.  When working out sizes, it's best to start with constructing the puff and calculate the body size from this.

My end result was perfect for a couple of small thread reels or one large one, a thimble and a needle threader - plus a very long flap with space for MANY pre threaded needles :)

I finally created a simple plait and button closure - I find wrapping a thread around a circular case to close very satisfying!   A hand woven button may yet replace my vintage choice shown here - both of course are equally lovely.  

This small project was without doubt very pleasurable to create and I am sure it will be extremely useful when I'm on the move this year.  It can easily be adjusted to accomodate different threads and needles and I am already imaging the many possible design deviations!