I was recently inspired by Marjorie from @marjoriesews on Instagram when I saw she’d made a knitting needle case. I’ve experimented with a variety of cases over the years, both bought and handmade, and have never been happy with any of them. I followed up the tag that Marjorie provided and found the case from Tinnberry.com, and was delighted to see two sizes as I wanted a second one for my travelling needle set – yes, I have such a thing! Then I saw that Tinnberry had a bundle with four different sized Oslo pouches, for not a lot extra, so I added them to the list.

I had the perfect fabric thanks to Jenny, from @joeandroxy on Instagram, who gave me some heavy cotton in a perfect design. I thoroughly enjoyed making the knitting cases and the instructions are excellent, explicit and precise.

My first effort was the big knitting case. The striped fabric is from Jenny and the interior fabric is some quilting cotton from my stash, origins long forgotten.

You can see that the knitting needle case holds everything I need. I love that it’s got pink on the back and green and yellow at the front. The zipped area holds my scissors, sewing needles, stitch markers, etc.

I immediately set about making the smaller one, to be used when I’m away from home. This time I used another piece of Jenny’s fabric for the lining; a really pretty pink and green floral which tones beautifully with the outside fabric.

I hadn’t realised that I had turned the stripes round, and think I prefer them going vertically.

Here is a photo of the insides of both needle cases, which gives a good idea of how much they hold. I think I have too much in there!

I managed to create the smaller one opening in the opposite direction. I think I had become a bit complacent!

I find that I need a third one for my really fat needles, which I don’t tend to use much, as well as all my spare knitting accessories that will mean that these will have less in them. I shall be making that from the same materials as the travel knitting needle case.

I made the largest of the Oslo pouches, which was also a really enjoyable sew. I used the same striped fabric for the outside and found some striped quilting cotton in my stash for the inside. This one holds my knitting perfectly, but it occurred to me that it might be too small as my knitting grows.

All the internal seams are bound and the handle is a piece of the leather I harvested from an abandoned sofa, which I then dyed. The zip pull is another piece of thin leather glued on.

I decided to make a bigger version so printed the large pattern out at 115%, which is quite a lot bigger, and just fitted on the paper.

I wanted to make a bag to carry my toiletries to the pool. At the moment I have them in a couple of bags, and it’s a bit messy. I found an old cot mattress protector left over from when my boys were babies, which I thought would be a perfect lining as it’s towelling backed with rubber.

I used some thick spotted fabric from the stash and a recycled zip, which is too short, so I have large leather tabs to fill in the gaps. A bit stupid, but I don’t mind too much. Lots of internal shots so you can see how well designed this bag is. It finished up too big for the pool, but is perfect for travelling as it fits everything in, including my hair wrap.

As this one was too big for the pool, I set about making a regular large sized one, lining it with another piece of the cot protector and finding another piece of heavy cotton.

I found a better length zip for this one. I have used small bottles for my shampoo and conditioner and found a small bottle of shower gel. I also used a “handmade” label which isn’t suitable for clothing really, but perfect for this.

I still want to make an extra large bag for my knitting, which I’ll get to over the next couple of days, but for now here is a photo of Miss G for you. She’s having a chat with her uncle, who should not be wearing a cap in the house – sigh! He’s also a bit grubby as he’s busy restoring a vintage car.