By popular demand (well, two or three of you), here's my first tutorial. I started off with a straight-sided wooden salad bowl, but with some creative tweaking and glue, you could use other shapes as well.
1. Sew a couple layers of tightly woven fabric into a circle that will fit inside the bottom of the bowl. I used the bowl as a template and did two lines of stitching. Leave a small opening and fill with sand.
Glue the opening closed.
2. Cut 2 circles of very thick felt, using the bowl as a template. I had some industrial felt- the thick stuff used to line winter boots. My circles were too big to begin with, so I kept trimming until they would fit snugly into the top of the bowl.
3. Using your felt circles as a template, cut 2 circles of thin quilt batting about a 1/2" to 3/4" bigger all around than the felt (eyeball it), then cut a circle of your top fabric 1/2" bigger than the batting. On one pincushion I made, I stitched the batting around the edge to attach it to the top fabric, and on the other one I didn't bother. Either way worked OK.
Assembly:
1. Put in your sandbag into the bottom of the bowl. Give it a shake to even out the layer of sand.
2. Fit your 2 felt circles into the bowl on top of the sandbag.
3. Position your layered batting and fabric on top of the felt.
4. Using a wooden craft stick (popsicle stick), tuck the fabric/batting around the sides of the felt.
Voila!! Finished pincushion! And since nothing is glued in, you can change out the fabric when it starts looking tired. Yay!
There she is- Grandma at her sewing machine! She didn't sew much for fun; she sewed because she had to mend things. She did, however, enjoy needlepoint and crewel embroidery. I'm so glad to have this photo showing part of my "needlewoman" heritage.
I finished this new tote from that swirly, irresistible Ikea fabric! In fact, my sewing room has been a frenzy of activity this week. In my constant zeal to make-make-make, I've amassed quite a collection of half-finished projects. Some of those are demos from classes I've taught, but those are relatively few in number. The simple ugly truth is, most are just UFOs just laying around making me feel guilty and unfocused.
SO! I'm taking control of the situation and completing unfinished projects into finished... things! Three orphaned 9 Patch blocks? You are now a potholder! Random hexagon rosette? You are now also a potholder! (I told my sister to expect a steady stream of random patchwork objects for her home.)
