pincushion

This is my first attempt at a real pincushion. I noticed my pins were a) becoming magnetized from sitting on a magnet in an old Altoids tin and b) were getting very dull. So instead of buying the ubiquitous tomato, I decided to stuff a pillow with some steel wool and polyfil and try to make my own pincushion.

Loved all the lovely ones in the Flickr group, Pincushions, but really wanted something functional.

I also wanted to try to make some real french knots, which came out okay except for the few times I didn't pull the string tight. I'm also guessing that silk floss will be much smoother than cheap cotton. And I mean cheap craft cotton, which is workable, but not easy to work with. Also, I need either a much smaller embroidery hoop or the more expensive wood kind instead of my cheap plastic one. Ugh.

And then, I didn't get the fabric glue out to the edge of the circle pieces, so they sort of flip up. I'm always a little paranoid that I'm putting too much glue on the fabric and that it will soak through and look horrible. I also need to put a tin of cotton swabs down near my craft table so that I can scoop and smear the glue rather than fight with squeezing the bottle, which is super hard to squeeze carefully.

Things I've learned/plan to do differently: glue more, get silk floss, make little weight-bag for bottom of pincushion. I have small plastic pellets (like the beans in the beanie babies), but haven't used them yet. I should just get some muslin and make little baggies with them. But now I have a pincushion.