Flowerpot Pincushion Tutorial

Do you use row marker pins?  I love mine and they are ever so handy when you've laid all your gorgeous blocks out on the floor but need to gather them in without losing the order before sewing.  For a while now I've been thinking I should make a new home for my row marker pins, just because they are kind of in the way on my normal pincushion.  The size of their flower heads means that, when I'm pinning, my hands tend to find them first when I reach over without looking and they don't really do for normal pinning.  So, a wee space of their own where I can get at them easily when it's time for the purpose is required.  What better place to plant my flowers than in a flowerpot pincushion?!

I thought I might share with you a quick little "how to" in case you have a similar little flowerpot or container you'd like to make a pincushion from.  If you follow Lori Holt's blog, you'll have seen that she makes her pincushions from mini loaf tins and vintage toy trucks and other clever items.  Whilst they may not all be circular like mine, I'm guessing the principles will be the same, so go ahead, find your container and get sewing and stuffing!

(I apologise in advance for the horrid shadows on my photos but my sewing now happens late at night in the shadowy sewing nook.  Hopefully it won't detract too much from the clarity.)

You will need:
(remember the measurements given are specifically for the little pot I used, but I've explained how to get your own measurements in brackets)

• mini flowerpot, about 3" high (mine is an old Ikea cactus pot)
• all purpose glue
• 2.5" cardboard circle  (you will want to measure the diameter of the depth at which you want your pincushion to sit inside your container)
• 7.5" fabric circle  (cut yours allowing enough fabric to cover the depth you want to wedge into your container and the height you want it to sit above the container when stuffed. For the flowerpot I found that 2.5 or 3 times bigger than the diameter of your cardboard circle was enough)
• small scissors
• toy stuffing
• needle and thread

1.  Tie a secure triple knot in the thread end and stitch a running stitch around your fabric circle.  Make sure those knots are secure enough to withstand being pulled in to gather the pincushion in the next step.  You can do this on your machine if you prefer, securing thread with backstitches to begin and pulling one of the threads to gather your fabric afterwards.

2.  Pull the end of your thread to gather the fabric into a round. Don't pull all the way just yet.

3.  Stuff the fabric as tightly as you can with the stuffing.

4.  Just before you pull your thread to tighten it all up, pop in your cardboard circle to act as the base of your pincushion.

5.  Now pull the thread tight to gather in the circle as much as you can and secure the closure with backstitches and a good secure knot.

6.  At this point just test your pincushion to see that it does fit into your container as you'd like.

7.  Like me, you may want to adjust the curves and corners and squish the stuffing around a bit to get a nice shape on it.

8.  When you are happy with it, put a line of glue on the side of your flowerpot/container just a little bit higher than your pincushion will rest in it.  The act of pushing the fabric pinnie in will squish the glue down the sides and creat extra sticking surface area.  A wee run of glue around the base of your fabric stuffed pincushion part also helps.  Hope you can see mine in the photo - not too much or it can get messy.

 9. Then "squoosh" it back in just like you did at point 6 and by golly, you have a flowerpot pincushion!

Well, I hope that all makes sense and that if you try it with something other than a flowerpot you will have equal success.

Pincushion Fun

I have a heap of projects requiring attention but they're all of the larger variety and I just knew I didn't have the capacity for them this week, so I attempted a couple of quick fix pincushions just to keep the withdrawal symptoms at bay!

I raided my teeny tiny scraps box to ensure that no fat quarters were harmed in the making of these projects.  Why is it so satisfying to make things entirely of leftovers?

I know they're pretty basic but that was kind of the point for me this week, and I like them anyway!

Practice = pincushion

I know it's not rocket science, but here's a quick wee pincushion I stitched up yesterday.

I was practicing with a new clearview quarter inch foot I ordered for my Janome in the hope of achieving better seams than the quarter inch foot it came with.  For whatever reason, the original foot seemed to give perfect seams but when all pressed out each final seam appeared to lose about an eighth of an inch.  Multiplied over a number of seams in a block you could end up with quite varied block sizes if you are trying to make something with different styles of blocks.  Anyway, the new foot and I seem to be getting along much better and the pincushion is just a little byproduct of my practicing.

I also had my first practice at free motion quilting.  That was scarey!  I tried to take a picture of my first efforts to give you a chuckle, but sadly I can't get the camera to pick up the stitching on my practice scraps - let's just say that those of you who worry about the quality of your fmq-ing would suddenly feel better because you're no longer bottom of the class.  MUCH more practice required, methinks!