These pictures are of the pincushions that we did at Quilting 101 this month. The orangey one I made, and the larger purple and turquoise is the one my friend, Monica, made and gifted to me.
I hand pieced my pincushion using the English paper piecing method Monica taught at the last Quilting 101 workshop. I filled it with walnut shells. What a hoot! It feels like a bean bag. I sewed a half inch finished band all around the hexagons which attached them together. There are two pictures, one of each side. I made it reversible. I wanted it to lay flat, so I did not put as much of the walnut shells into it as I could have. I sewed the clear beads on through the pincushion to try to keep the walnut shells from shifting so much.
I have had a couple of quilting teachers making pincushions and telling us to use walnut shells instead of polyester stuffing. I like the poly stuff, but the shells gives it some weight and hopefully it will stay where it should stay on the sewing table. I had to go back over a few places where my stitches were a little too far apart as the shells started to pop out when I squeezed it. I was testing it to make sure my hand stitches would hold. I know it would be hard to sew it by machine since the hexagons I used were a smaller size than Monica's pincushion.
It took more time than I thought it would take to hand piece the strip all around. It was fun to figure out everything, but I am sure I would not want to try to make a living selling those little things! Maybe it will be like my apple pie...I did it, I mastered the concept, now on to something else!
Happy Quilting
7 comments:
I have used the crushed walnut shells in a pincushion too. They work great in the one that sits on the edge of the table with the little scrap container hanging from it. I like your yellow and orange combination.
Love the pin cushions Pam!! I need to make a pin cushion/caddy for the arm of my new chair....can't be sticking pins in the new furniture LOL. I've heard that walnut shells are good for sharpening and cleaning your pins too.
Crispy
Cute PIncushions, Pam! A great way to learn a special quilting technique and end up with pincushion to boot!
It is sure a cute pincushion though.
Cute pincushions.
Now tell me, how did you get your blog to spread across the page like you have. Mine is so narrow. I have looked for layouts that offer more space and not had any luck. Yours looks great!
Hexagons! I love them! Wanda answered my question, I was wondering if the walnut shells were ground up. Do you like the English paper piecing?
I might have to try one of these -- I have some GFG blocks that I'm not going to use in a quilt....they were just for practice. These are very cute.
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