Few things are more unruly than a bunch of circular needles! I've come up with a simple way to keep them all organized, and my life hasn't been the same since!

Materials

The Basics: 

• A small binder (This one comes from a store in New York called Muji. This binder is 8 1/2 x 11 inches.)
  
• Clear plastic sheet protectors
• Separator sheets with tabs
• Sticky tabs
  

The Embellishments:

• A piece of fabric big enough to cover the front of the binder (This is P & B Textiles' Color Spectrum in Mint)
  
• Pinking shears
• Yarn to knit a decoration (I used Rowan 4 ply cotton in the color Cream #153)
  
• Knitting needles the right size for the yarn you're using
• A sewing needle and thread
  
• Matt medium (or fabric glue)
• An old or cheap paint brush for the glue
• A ruler and marker
  

To Assemble

First knit something that you think would be cute on the cover of the binder, like a doily, or a flower, or a stitch sample.
I knit the first 26 rounds of the "Plastic Doily" from this great book of classic lace knitting by Nancy Nehring, The Lacy Knitting of Mary Schiffmann. I made a picot edge by casting on 2 and binding off 4 all the way around.

 


Next cut a piece of fabric bigger than the front of the binder, and iron it. With a sewing needle and thread sew the knit piece to the approximate center of the fabric. Try to sew a bit under the edge of the knitting so it won't show.

Now center the knitting on the binder and trace the edge of the binder with a ruler and marker.   

Turn the fabric over. If the lines you just drew bled through the fabric enough to see them, use a pencil and ruler to measure and mark a smaller concentric rectangle inside the outer border. (If you can't see your lines, hold the fabric up to a window, mark the corners and redraw the outside border on the back side of the fabric.)

With pinking shears cut around the inside rectangle.

Now brush the matt medium all over the front of the binder cover, and carefully place the fabric in the center, smoothing down bubbles and ripples. Then brush a coat of matt medium all over the fabric and front cover, avoiding the knit piece. Let this dry.

To Organize

The best way to organize your needles may depend on your needle collection. I have needles in a wide variety of both lengths and sizes, so I decided to separate my binder by length because there are fewer lengths than there are sizes. It may make more sense for you to organize by size, especially if you tend to work with needles that fall into a narrow size range.

Label the separator page tabs however makes sense for you. My binder's tabs read "12 inches", "16 inches", "20 inches", etc.

Then within each section, affix sticky labels to the sheet protectors, and label them. Mine say the needle size: "#4", "#8", etc.

Then, the fun part, put your needles into their new homes.

Organization at last!