Last June I mentioned that because of a fellow stitcher’s chew-happy puppy I’d got myself kitted up to stitch Teresa Wentzler’s Needle Guardian. One of my reasons for choosing this as my after-dinner-watching-telly project was that I really wanted something that took absolutely no design input or decisions on my part, but was still challenging enough to keep my interest. The Needle Guardian, with its blended colours, variegated silk, pulled thread work, rainbow metallic thread and beads ticked all the boxes. Quite apart from the fact that this dragon has character, and makes me smile whenever I look at it .

Which brings me to the question: is this a boy dragon or a girl dragon? Throughout the stitching process I mostly referred to him as, well, him. But then a fellow stitcher commented that she realised it was a personalised design but Mabel was in fact the perfect name for this dragon. Hmm, perhaps she had a point – the dragon’s posture (not to mention the hairdo, strangely reminiscent of curlers) suddenly made me think of the battleaxes in vintage British soaps and sitcoms. And if a Nora or an Ena, why not a Mabel? Mabels have attitude!

Once all the stitching was finished, there remained the question of What To Do With It. I generally feel that if I enjoyed stitching it, then it doesn’t have to be useful in any other way, but it seemed a shame to consign this characterful reptilian to my folder of finished-but-not-“finished” projects. Originally the design was intended as a needle book, folded in the middle so the dragon’s tail and the name of the owner were on the back, and the main bit of the dragon on the front. But it would make quite a large needle book, and I knew it wouldn’t get used; the needle books which I use from day to day and which are dotted around the house are smaller and undecorated versions of my Hardanger mini kits.

However, I do have a box in which I keep my stock of needles, both for kits and for my own use. It is made of sturdy cardboard and is covered in a rather startling pattern of coloured dots on a black ground. It’s useful, but it isn’t pretty. So why not make it pretty by adding a blingy dragon to it?

I didn’t want to have to do any sewing if I could help it, so everything was going to be attached with double-sided sticky tape. It may not be conservation-grade finishing, but then it’s not meant to be an heirloom to be handed down the generations – it’s a cardboard needle box that I’m making look a bit nicer. If I have to restick things every now and then, that’s fine by me. After considering various options from my stash I decided that black felt covering the entire top of the box would make a good neutral background and also show up the pulled thread work, and the addition of a bit of padding would, I hope, make it look more luxurious for only a little extra effort.

First up was cutting roughly around the stitching to get it down to a manageable size, covering the top of the box with tape, and sticking a rectangle of wadding slightly smaller than the stitching in the centre of the lid. Note to self: do not cut wadding with your sticky-tape scissors – it gets messy! Next, stick a layer of black felt over the wadding and trim to the size of the lid. Then trim the embroidery as close as possible to the nun’s stitch edging and put sticky tape around the edges on the back.

And finally, stick the embroidery onto the padded part of the black felt, pushing the edges down to create a nicely curved look. Voilà, a dragon-guarded needle box!