Flower Pot Pincushion - Day 11 of 100 Days on Pins and Needles

Spring?  Well whether mother nature is telling us it is Spring or if she is still covering you with a blanket of snow where you live, the calendar says Spring has arrived.  With that in mind I spent the weekend shopping for some new herb plants for my garden and at the same time purchased some crafting items at the garden center.  I brought my love of flowers and gardening into my sewing area by creating a fun and useful Flower Pot pincushion.

I used my handy E-6000 glue and attached a small clay flower pot to a clay flower pot saucer, adding the saucer gives you a great place to hold thread, buttons or other sewing notions you may need while sewing or crafting.  You could even add a larger saucer to give you more space for extra stuff.

I showcase two versions of my pincushions, in the first one I used a salad plate as a template and cut out a fabric circle, gathered the edge with a needle and thread then stuffed with fiberfill.  In the second version I inserted the tomato pincushion I made a few weeks ago into the pot to use as my pincushion.  Because of the tight fit in both I did not have to glue the pincushion into the pot, the pins are corsage pins and I added the flower beads to give them a really fun garden look. As always I found a tutorial to share if you would like to create your own flower pot pincushion to give as a gift or just add a touch of Spring to your sewing area.

Flower Pot Pincushion

The tutorial gives you an easy way to make the pincushion that requires no sewing and you use a hot glue gun to attach the pincushion into the pot.  A great tutorial that is fast and easy to put together.

I hope you create your own little garden to display in your sewing space, anywhere in your home or share a little bit of Spring with someone else.  If you drop in and check out my blog please leave a comment and let me know what you think.  I hope you enjoy a walk in the sunshine and don't forget to stop and smell the roses as you take an inspirational walk down "life in the craft lane".  

Easter Pincushion - Day 10 - 100 Days on Pins and Needles

Everything around us is Easter themed right now and with that in mind I continue to find more Easter pincushions that could have more than one use.  As I mentioned in my last pincushion post the stuffed egg shaped cushions could be given to children as a fun toss game for an Easter treat instead of candy. This weeks feature has a different twist as a home decor item but could also be used as a toss game item for children as an Easter treat too.

Easter Egg Pincushion

Pincushions are not just for pins.

 Many years ago when my husband was active duty Army we spent many years in Germany.  A tradition there during the Easter season they bring in fresh branches place them in a vase and create what they call an "Easter Tree".  They decorate them with blown out eggs that are beautifully hand painted along with little wooden decorations of rabbits, and other Easter themed items.

Along with the egg shaped pincushions I already made I added a new look with a felted wool egg that is decorated with machine embroidery and has raw edges cut with pinking shears.  I also found a new design, pictured above, to add to my "tree", making mine out of felted wool.  Instead of hand embroidery and felt cutouts I did some machine embroidery designs on the "egg", added felted wool blades of grass along with machine stitched grass, a die cut flower shape embellished with a button and topped it off with a sheer ribbon for hanging. If I were making it as a child's gift I would not add buttons or any other items that could be pulled off and swallowed.

I decided to use my newly made Easter Egg pincushions to decorate my own "Easter Tree" to add to my holiday decor.

Once Easter is over you can take your decorations down and hang them in your sewing room as a cute little decor item, use them as gifts for your sewing friends or keep them and use them as pincushions for yourself.

I hope that I have given you some ideas of not only how to make some cute gift ideas but how to add seasonal fun to your home and sewing.  Take a walk down "life in the craft lane" and see what you can find to inspire your next creative project.

Easter Egg Pincushion - Day 9 - 100 Days on Pins and Needles

With Easter fast approaching I decided to focus on some Easter Theme pincushions.  I found a cute little Easter Egg pincushion featured on Retro Mom Blog in March of 2009.  

Retro Mom Easter Egg Tutorial

The instructions are simple and easy to follow she also provides a link to the pattern you can print out for this project.  These little pincushions would make great gifts or display items, maybe even soft toys for a baby or toddler instead of giving plastic eggs full of candy.  After making a few I picked some up to show my daughter and the thought occurred to me that these would make great items to practice your juggling or to let your children toss in a basket as an indoor snow day or rainy day toss game.

As usual I made my own version of the egg in tone on tone off white fabrics and added a little twist to mine by placing it into a cup, you could also add some Easter grass or shredded green fabric in the base.  With the addition of an egg cup or dish it turns into a sewing accessory that is stable and won't roll away.  If you don't have an egg cup any small dish would do fine, I found some cute little plastic Easter eggs at the Dollar Store that work great as a stand for your pincushion.

I hope you enjoy this pattern as much as I did.  Create a dozen eggs and display them in a decorated re-purposed egg carton in your kitchen or sewing room for a fun country look.