Supplies: fabric, sewing machine, needle, thread, embroidery thread, stuffing, small piece of felt, ruler and/or square (I forgot the supplies picture)
Time: 30 minutes
Today involved a lot of duct cleaning in a seemingly futile attempt at getting the remaining smoke smell out of my apartment. There was a lot of vacuuming (sorry Daphne) and scrubbing before heading to work and not a lot of crafting time, so today’s project is nice and simple. I just found this tutorial for a pin cushion by Martha Stewart and was not wowed by her pictures, so I thought I’d make my own tutorial for you. I think her finished pin cushion is prettier, but I didn’t have the exact supplies she called for, so I have an excuse, right? If nothing else, my tutorial will be better.
Grab a piece of fabric and measure a rectangle that’s twice as long as it is wide. Mine was 12” by 6”. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t measure unless I have to. Well today I had to measure. I wasn’t too exact though. I don’t have a square, so I just used a book and it worked perfectly.
Then fold the rectangle in half, right sides facing. Sew a seam up the edges to make tube-like thing like this:
Now put away your sewing machine and whip out the old fashioned needle and thread. Sew a running stitch along one of the top edges:
Pull the thread to cinch the edge and sew it in place.
Turn the pouch inside out and fill it with stuffing. The official instructions say to use cotton stuffing because it’s firmer, but I’m not interested in spending extra money on extra stuffing. So polyester it is!
Sew another running stitch in the open end of the pouch and cinch it. You’ll end up with a little pumpkin like this:
The end with the “stem” will be the bottom of the pin cushion. Get a larger needle and some nicely colored embroidery floss and tie a knot in the end. Tack the “stem” to the rest of the cushion by poking the needle all the way through the core of the cushion. Wrap the thread around the outside of the cushion and pull it through the bottom of the cushion again. Keep doing that until you get about 5 or 6 pieces of thread wrapped around the sides of the tomato cushion.
If you’d like to put a leafy something on your tomato cushion grab a small scrap of felt. Cut out a little leaf and sew it on top. Make sure you end at the bottom of the cushion so the end of the thread is hidden. You should wind up with a tomato pin cushion like this:
And once it’s full of pins it’ll look something like this:
Now you’re ready to go pin and so to your heart’s content!
Best,
Alie
Daily Craft Project 