project: hexagon pincushion

Last Saturday, I had a little Stitch Together for blog friends to come and meet up and make something fun. I wanted it to be fairly simple, because we only had a short time to work, plus there would be plenty of chatting to distract us.

So I put together a little pincushion that could be hand stitched, and have a place for embroidery. My two favorite crafty things! You can make your own, start to finish, in an hour or so, depending on how much embroidery you want to add.

I've now made three of these (they're so fun!), and my latest has an Eagle from my Holiday Jordnöts embroidery pattern. He's looking quite patriotic, which sounded good for a summer pincushion.

Here's what you need:
Fabric
Embroidery floss
Sewing/quilting thread
Rice
Pins
Scissors
Needle
Hexagons printed on card stock



Embroider a design onto your fabric. Make sure the pattern fits within the hexagon template.



Pin a hexagon template onto the wrong side of the fabric, and trim the fabric to be 3/8 inch larger on all sides. Fold each edge in, and secure at the corners with a stitch of regular thread, as show in the photo. Try not to catch the template with your stitches...you'll thank me later.

You need to make a front, which is the embroidered side, and a back. (You only need two hexagon templates, but there are extras in the PDF.)



Finger press the edges, then carefully remove the templates. Pin the two fabric hexagons, wrong sides together.



Using embroidery floss and teeny running stitches, sew around the outside of the hexagons. Leave one edge open for filling.



Fill the pincushion with rice. Fill it some more. When you think you've got it as packed as you can, shake it down, and add more rice. Seriously...you'll get a lot more in there than you think you can, and you want it very full and firm.



Sew the last edge closed, and you're set to go.




There are lots of other things you can use to fill a pincushion, but the rice seems to work really well. And I like that, because it means that I don't have to go and buy any special supplies! (Plus, you may have noticed that I've been drawn to rice in my crafts in recent months...not sure where that came from, but I expect it will continue for a while!)



If you weren't able to come out last week, at least now you can craft along and enjoy part of the fun. Make it more authentic with friends from near you, a cool beverage, and some fondue!