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How to Make Your Own Needle Minders

October 29, 2025 by Sarah White

diy needle minder

In my travels around the crafty Internet, I see a lot of tools, some of which seem useful, others not so much. 

One cross stitch tool that I thought looked cool but I’d never bothered to buy was a needle minder. These little tools involve a pair of magnets with something fun on top of one of them. You place your cross stitch fabric (I’m sure you could use it for other hand sewing projects as well) between the two magnets, with the fancy one on top.

Then when you aren’t working on your project, you stick your needle to the top of the needle minder and the magnet holds it there. No more losing your needle in the middle of a project, or having to stick the needle through your project to keep it where you want it. 

Because I’m lazy in weird ways, instead of buying a needle minder to try out, I made my own. Two, in fact. 

My needle minders are made with flat disc magnets and air dry clay, which is fun because you can make it any shape you want and then decorate it with paint or markers once its dry. 

I kept mine pretty simple, with a circle and a kind of diamond shape (I was going for an eye but I didn’t quite make it LOL). You could use little cutters to make shapes if you have some for polymer clay or other purposes. 

These were really fun and easy to make, and you can even make your own air dry clay for this purpose, though purchased air dry clay is fine, too. Again, lazy in specific ways that make making things “easier” than leaving the house to buy them. 

To each their own. 

Anyway, if you’d like to make your own needle minders for yourself or to give as gifts to your stitching friends, you can find the tutorial over at Our Daily Craft. 

Do you use a needle minder? I’d love to hear what you think about it!

Next Pattern:

  • What Are Needle Minders and How Do You Use One?
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Have you read?

Designer Spotlight: Unique Stitch Crafts

Unique Stitch Crafts is a Turkish designer that has a couple of main interests in their cross stitch designs: travel and Christmas stockings. 

By far the biggest category in their storefront is Christmas stockings, with more than 100 options to choose from. There are fully stitched fronts with designs classic and whimsical (like an alicorn and a pastel rainbow, or a bunny in Harlequin costume playing violin to a mushroom) and designs that just go across the cuff of the stocking. There are ornaments with a Nutcracker or Frozen theme, New York City stockings and stockings for your dinosaur. 

As an example, here’s a stocking covered with mini holiday designs, which you could also use as ornaments if you wanted. The full design is 165 by 255 stitches, which comes out to 10.3 by 16 inches, or 26 by 40.6 cm on 16 count fabric. The pattern just makes the front of the stocking so you need to grab some fabric for the back of the stocking and sew it together yourself. 

There’s also a large collection of travel cross stitch patterns, including national parks designs both large and mini, and travel poster style designs for many US states and cities. (There’s not an Arkansas, which is my standard test since I live there, but there is a pattern of the Mississippi River bridge in Memphis, which is technically half in Arkansas.)

If you’re more of a world traveler you’ll find more of the travel poster style designs for cities and countries, including Thailand and China, Berlin, Sydney and Marrakech. 

In addition to all of that, you’ll find patterns called retro, which includes a wide range of designs, but many seem to be food and coffee related; folk art designs (lots of flowers and birds); and famous paintings translated to cross stitch. Smaller categories include Christmas, Halloween, animals, kids and castles. 

Check out all the fun designs at Unique Stitch Crafts on Etsy. 

[Photo: Unique Stitch Crafts]

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