Pincushion Dish - Day 12 of 100 Days on Pins and Needles

Do you have one odd dish from a long lost set?  How about a vase you no longer use for flowers but can't bear to throw out?  Well after reviewing my collection of pincushion ideas I found this quick and easy project that transfers any small dish or vase into a lovely sewing room addition. 

Sweet and Simple Pincushion

For my first sample at the top of the page I used a small parfait dish and inserted my pincushion form and turned it into a handy pincushion on a pedestal.  My pincushion fit in the dish nice and tight so I didn't have to glue it to secure in place.

My second option, below, I made using my previously made "tomato" pincushion and a small Japanese tea cup that I found at the thrift store.  Once more the pincushion form fit in it nice and tight, so I don't have to worry about it falling out.

            


This tutorial is super easy to follow and takes only a few items to create a handy and cute addition to your sewing space.  Remember all you need is a dish or small vase, some fabric scraps, fiberfill, a pair of scissors, a needle and thread  then just click on the link above and find the instructions to start creating.

I hope you enjoy another fun idea for a quick and easy Mother's Day gift idea, add some special embellishments and create a very special one of a kind pincushion.  Don't have a dish or vase, check out your local thrift stores and see what you can find.

Enjoy this new idea to turn a household item and a few sewing or craft items into a great looking sewing accessory and don't forget to leave a comment or share what your are making.  

Drop in every Monday and join me in my search to find 100 different pincushion ideas as I take a 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.

Doll Pincushion - Day 7 of 100 Days on Pins and Needles

I had to take a break from my quest to find and make a variety of pincushions and needle books due to family illness but now I am back to searching the web for new designs.  I will continue to search out new designs and will post what I find every Monday instead of daily.

I found this pattern in a Family Circle Magazine many years ago and made copies of the pattern for future use.  A few years ago I needed a gift for a Secret Santa exchange and I decided to make  this cute little design for a quilting friend of mine. The picture above is the one I gave to my friend.  The pattern called for the doll to wear a straw hat but I decided to give her a funky hair style and tie it up with a bow.

I spent the last 2 days searching the internet for a similar pattern without success.  The pattern I have is from 1993 so I have not been able to find anything on the web that even comes close to the design I used.  The closest thing I could find was a Half Doll Pincushion made with a porcelain figure.

Half Doll Pincushion

There are various places to purchase the half doll figures such as Ebay, Etsy or Amazon.  Some can be quite pricey but another option that I found on a YouTube video is a Barbie Doll Pincushion using a Barbie doll with the legs removed for the doll portion. I have included the link to the YouTube video, but as it is with many home made how to videos, this one is very slow moving and one needs to be very patient with the maker.

I hope that you join me next week to see what I find and over the next few weeks I will try to work up a pattern for today's featured design.

100 Days on Pins and Needles

Felted Wool Bottle Cap Pincushion Tutorial 

Day 1

Recently I began creating pincushions of different kinds and it came to me that it might be of interest to others to see the many styles of pincushions and needle books there are out there.  With this in mind I have decided to begin a new project of creating 100 different kinds and styles of pincushions and needle books.  My goal is to create one new item every weekday until I have created 100 different ones.  I hope that there will be readers out there in cyberspace that will like to follow along in my journey.

Pincushion #1:  A bottle cap pincushion, a tiny little item that can easily be carried in a small sewing kit, usually created from a recycled plastic water bottle or soda bottle cap.  I decided to make mine a bit larger and use a 2 inch diameter plastic bottle cap from a juice bottle.  I had never made one before so I Googled instructions and found several sites to give me a good basis where to start.

http://www.free-homemade-gift-ideas.com/pin-cushion-patterns.html

http://www.craftstylish.com/item/945/how-to-make-pretty-pincushions/page/all

Using these tutorials I came up with my own pattern and instructions

Here is the materials list and the steps I took to make my own style and size of bottle cap pincushion.

 Materials:

bottle cap ( I used a juice bottle cap that measured approximately 2 inches across)

felted wool or acrylic wool  (I used bits of felted wool)

Polyester fiberfill

thread (you can match your felt or use a contrasting color depending on how you want it to look)

hand sewing needle

small sharp scissors

beads or buttons for decorations (optional)

clear floral stones that are flat on one side ( to add a bit of weight to the pincushion)

jewel glue (make sure it is permanent glue used to adhere beads, rhinestones, etc to fabric)

hot glue gun or fabric glue

1.  Most instructions ask you to cut out a circle.  I decided to place some jewel glue in the center of the cap and then place onto a small square of fabric then I just trimmed around the cap with a small pair of sharp scissors.

2.  Cut a strip of felt to fit around the bottle cap, make sure you cut it about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch wider than the lip of the bottle cap.  Cut it long enough to go around the cap and slightly overlap on the other edge.  You can use a rotary cutter and cutting mat or just use a pair of scissor like I did.

 

 3.  I don't do embroidery so I used matching thread and did a simple whip stitch to attach the strip of felt to the felt on the base of the bottle cap.  The glue on the bottom of the cap helps to hold the base felt in place so all I had to do was to hold on to the edge strip of felt while I sewed around the base.

4.  Stick the floral stones to the inside of the cap with hot glue. This will help to hold everything together when sewing the top of the pincushion on.

5.  Cut out a circle 3 1/2 inches in diameter.  If you want you can decorate your circle with the beads or buttons at this point or you can wait until you are finished making your pincushion.  It is easier to decorate the circle while it is flat but the choice is yours.  I was using beads so I decided to decorate it now.  If you want to do an embroidered design that would look great too.

6.  Sew a running stitch around the outer edge of the circle and pull tight to create a small "cup".  Stuff the "cup"  firmly with polyester fiberfill then tie off your thread.

7.  You can hot glue the top of the pincushion in place over the floral stones, or just hold it in place and stitch the top to the side strip of the cap.

  

8.  Using a hot glue gun with a fine tip point I added a thin line of glue along the edge of the side strip and added some metallic braiding to finish it off.  You could also use fabric glue if you do not have a glue gun or rather not use one.

9.  I decided a few more beads were needed and so I sewed on a few more and then I added 3 usable quilter's pins as an extra decoration.

  

10.  I did a second one and instead of metallic braiding I added pearls that come pre-strung and sold on a spool or by the yard at any JoAnn Fabrics or Hobby Lobby.  I stitched them on taking a stitch between beads using white thread.

These pincushions are fun and easy to put together and would make great gifts.  Decorate them however you like adding beads, sequins, felt cutouts or embroidery, the possibilities are endless and only restricted by your imagination.

I hope you find this tutorial easy to understand and follow.  If you use my directions please let me know and please share photos too, it would be great to see what others are making.