In my limited experience, making those little things that accompany activities are not quick to make! You know, project bags, needle books, pincushions, things for the kitchen – they can take a few hours. So, I don’t tend to make a lot of them because I’d rather be making clothes.
That said, this was a particular need. I’m quite a clumsy person despite trying to be careful. I can do very delicate things with my hands and I’m good at visualising things, especially in 3D, but I tend to forget where I am and that, my friends, is a recipe for tripping, knocking things over and falling up and down stairs. So I can imagine myself on the stairs with a cup of tea and where each foot is in relation to each step but when I am actually ON the stairs, my mind is at my sewing machine and that is when my cup of tea meets the stairs.
All this to say that I am sick of knocking my box of pins over and inevitably coming up a few short each time. A pincushion was needed. But why make an ordinary pincushion? I could use this as a reason to try something out. I thought that perhaps something in cross-stitch would give a good firmness to the cushion. I looked on etsy and found this design as a digital download from this shop. Upon visiting now, I see that this particular design is not offered for sale at the moment but it will probably be listed again.
I had most of the colours already in my little floss stash, as well as some blank aida. The design says that it’s for tapestry yarn and for a much bigger type of canvas but I didn’t want anything too big or heavy, so I stuck with what I had.
I used a little Tanya Whelan fat quarter for the backing. It was in my embroidery box and I had forgotten about it, so it was a nice surprise that it matches so well.
I stuffed it with some polyfill and let me tell you, it really took a lot! For such a small thing!
The pattern was very clear and easy to follow. I probably could have made life easier for myself by using a few less strands of floss – I used the full six strands – but I didn’t want to risk having less than full coverage. I wasn’t bothered filling in the white patches with white floss but other than that, I worked it as per the pattern.
I’m not going to say that that’s the end of pins on the floor but it’s a start!