The Piece Keepers

The Piece Keepers

For keeping the Peace in the Crafting Corner

 For those who love applique...check out  Esther Aliu's little shop of wondrous patterns!

© Elaine Rutledge 2015
I started making Piece Keepers years ago, when working on an involved applique quilt, and had to put the project aside for moving state to state, and with life just getting in the way. I needed a way to pick up where I’d left off without losing the many small flower petals, leave, stems and centers. A Piece Keeper is simply a sheet of acid free cardstock, with four overlapping flaps. It opens wide, and stays closed with a pair of Velcro® dots. You should never, ever store fabric in a non-acid free environment.
Tools and supplies
1 Pad of Strathmore Bristol, size 14 inches X 17 inches – Acid Free
A ruler you can see through
Pencil
Paper cutting scissors or craft knife
A dry ballpoint pen, or small crochet hook, or bamboo point turner
Hook and loop fasteners, such as Velcro® Dots, self-adhesive
Fabric or paper scraps for color coding the contents, and glue or iron-on web

Optional:
An inexpensive tweezers for scoring flaps for thicker contents
A circle Cutter, a roll of clear cellophane gift wrap, and paper glue for making a window in the Keeper

Step 1. Draw the cutting lines:
Measure and mark 4 ½” parallel to the short side of paper. Draw a line 3 ¾” parallel to the long side.
At the edge of the paper, make a dot ½” inside each line, and draw a diagonal line from the dot to the intersection of the
lines. Draw a line to round off the corner if desired.

Step 2. Cut out Keeper with a scissor or craft knife. Using the cut keeper, draw a pattern on the next sheet in the pad. I
cut the entire pad at one time, using a craft knife and a lot of pressure on a cutting mat. I don’t remove the glued tablet
end until cutting the last flap and clamped the other 3 sides with binder clips to keep it from shifting under the pressure.

Step 3. Score the folding lines (dotted lines on the illustration) running your tool alongside a ruler: an empty ballpoint
pen, or any pointed tool that will “dent” the paper without cutting it. If you expect your contents to be thicker than ¼”
you may want to score two parallel lines on each flap with a tweezers – using your index finger to press down and keep
the points from spreading further apart.

Step 4. Fold the sides of the Keeper to the inside, then fold the bottom up. Place a pair of self-adhesive hook and loop
fasteners, joined to the edge of the flap, and fold the top flap down, securing the one side of the fastener to the top flap.

Optional Window:
Cut a circle in the bottom of the Keeper, and glue down a piece of clear cellophane wrap.

You can “Color Code” the contents with a scrap of fabric, or scrapbooking paper.
When the Keeper is open, all the contents are visible and accessible.