When you break a sewing needle or bend a pin, how do you discard the pieces?  Do you throw
them in the trash?  You can cut yourself if you need to retrieve something from the trash.  Or do
you recycle them?  Even doing this, you can end up hurting yourself or someone else.  I have seen
how the garbage collectors handle the bins.  They dump quickly, and sometimes miss the recycling
compartments in the truck.  Spilled sharp bits can be very dangerous the next time you mow the lawn.

     I have a solution that is safer and also prettier.  I start with a clean, empty Parmesan cheese
canister.  I can open the flip top lid over the shaker holes and drop in my broken pins and needles.  
I can open the flip top lid over the wider opening to drop in a worn rotary cutter blade, too.  I can also
remove the lid, if necessary.  The pretty part comes from the label I embroidered to wrap around the
canister.  Here is a picture.                                                       




     When I fastened the wrap around the canister, I noticed that the repeat pattern for the stripes
worked out perfectly.  It looks well planned, but was really a happy accident.  (The stripes are 1/4"
wide, in case you'd like to go for this look, too.)  The canister was from an 8 ounce size of store
brand Parmesan cheese with a 9" circumference.  I used the 80 mm size of my Tall and Skinny
embroidery alphabet to create the lettering on the wrap.



     The instructions offered at the end of this blog include the dimensions needed for making a
wrap just like this one.  They also explain how to determine dimensions for other containers.  With
the circumference of the container, the desired height of the wrap, and the width of the Velcro(R),
it will be very easy for you to plan wraps for all the cylinders in your house!  The same measurements
will work for a rectangular container, too, but you'll need to make sure the design will fit within a
side of the rectangle.
 
     Here is a mayonnaise jar that I use for cough drops.  The wrap is only 3" high, to fit in the   
recessed part of the jar where the label had been attached.  Because the wrap is shorter, I chose    
to overlap the letters.  For this project I used Contour Print medium.  I embroidered the second line  
first, so that the top line would stand out more.                                                   




Click the link below to download my instructions.

Embroidered Canister Wrap.pdf (2.8MB)