Pincushion Round-up Post!
This year’s swap item for the Stitch Gathering Retreat is a pincushion so I thought it would be a good idea to round-up all my favourite pincushion tutorials and patterns for inspiration and help.
I’ll also be showing off new pincushions I’ve just finished plus favourites I’ve been gifted over the years.
But let’s start off with some tute and pattern recommendations!
My lovely friend Sarah Ashford (who will be teaching again at this year’s SG) produced this clever (and safety conscious!) patchwork pocket pincushion. It’s a free tutorial here on the Polka Dot Chair blog.
And speaking of safety conscious the same could be said of this Pin Cushion Cube by Katy Cameron of The Littlest Thistle. No more stabbing yourself as you take this out of your bag at a class or retreat!
3rd Story Workshop has a wonderful tutorial for quick improv pincushions which she also uses for a great post about colour!
I’ve been meaning to make one of these Clip Cushions (for holding Wonder/binding clips) for ages!
Here’s a great tutorial showing you how to make one from Squeeze Quilts.
If you fancy getting a bit artistic with your pincushion then try Minki Kim’s tutorial for the Bernina ‘We All Sew’ blog to make these cute little One-of-a-Kind pinnies!
Or perhaps you’d like to use more than fabric to make your pincushion?
Then head to Svetlana SOTAK Handmade’s excellent tutorial for a wood base pincushion.
Or what about a Mega Pinnie! The wonderful Sheila Blue Patch Quilter used to teach this at some of the earlier Stitch Gatherings and I have been lucky enough to receive two of these as gifts myself – one from a lovely student and one as an extra from a very kind swap partner – and I love them!
You can buy the pattern for this amazing item (which was also in Today’s Quilter so check your back issues!) from Sheila’s Etsy shop here.
I have also always wanted to make one of these fabulous Hexie Pincushions by the super talented Nicole of Modern Handcraft. Luckily she has a free tutorial here!
Here’s a great post where blogger Stephanie Swoodson Says tests four different free pincushion tutorials for you.
And I even have my own pincushion tutorial on this blog, it’s the first tutorial I ever did back in 2010!
This is my Little House Pincushion which even contains a needlecase under the roof! Check out the tutorial here. I actually just read back through the tutorial for the first time in many years and it holds up pretty good (I actually want to make another one of these!), the photography is pretty basic but otherwise I am happy to still recommend it!
Hopefully you will find plenty to get started with there. But I can also share a couple of my favourite pincushion given to me by special peeps.
On the left is a beautiful sashiko biscornu made for me by my Japanese friend Hikaru. And on the right is that cute toadstool complete with precious Heather Ross gnome made for me by the amazing Nicky Eglinton.
And lastly I have been making some pincushions myself this week…
It all started with an idea to draw a freehand sea urchin shape and turn this into EPP templates. Then I chose a ‘colourwash’ of fabrics to give an ombre effect and stitched the ring of wedges together.
Once complete I appliqued it to a background and embellished the wedges with hand stitching, buttons and beads. Then (when the poor things had probably suffered enough!) I made them into these generously sized round pin cushions! The other round pincushion on the right above is my practice piece. I used an orphan block from a ‘mid-century modern quilt’ workshop which was the perfect size. Maybe I will add some embellishment to this later too!
This will be a new workshop for me to teach, first at the Thread House Retreat in January, and then probably in the studio and elsewhere. We have just announced our TTH retreat workshops for 2019 and you can check them all out here.
I do hope this has been a useful post for all you pincushion makers and swappers. If you’d like to share your favourite tutorial or pattern then leave a note in a comment below!
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