Thursday, October 11, 2012

Hoarder and New Pincushions


This corner of my sewing room looked much, much worse than this photo.  I know it probably still looks bad to an organized person but it's pretty good for me.  I cleaned it up about a month ago by organizing projects in boxes and put some current crafts-to-do in the white square baskets on the floor.  The reason I am showing you this "pile" though is because friends and family know I am a 'crazy crafter' and they are always giving me stuff.  The WalMart bags were my recent acquisition.  I could say no when people try to 'gift' me these lovely goodies but I cant' tell you how many times I've ended up using the stuff.  And I always think, "I'll just look in the bag and get rid of the rest."  Unfortunately, the bags stay in my room a little longer than they should!  So this time, there were some sewing notions like big safety pins, a tomato pincushion, measuring tapes, batting, scraps of fabrics, etc.  I really needed to just donate the bulk of it but I didn't at the time.
 
 
Fast forward to last night when I was working on the pincushions for the craft show.  I wanted to put a small amount of crushed walnut shells in the center of the cushies for weight and to clean burrs off the straight pins.  I look in the bag because I remember seeing some very cheap-looking muslin.  Perfect!  I also wanted to wrap a little batting around these pods and tuck in a little stuffing.  In the bag again, poly batting that I would not use for quilting.  Again, perfect!  he he.....I think I'm on my way to being a hoarder.  Those bags aren't going anywhere!!!


Skip forward to 11:30 p.m. and you have seven little round pincushions and three Adirondack chairs.  The chairs were courtesy of my friend Peggy.  (hoard, hoard, hoard!)  LOL

 
I was really stuck on embellishing these cushies.  They needed something more than the big cushion but with them being round, every little thing I added made them look like bonnets.  I ended up gluing rick-rack to the base of most of them to cover the space of where the cushion and frame met.  That worked to make it look less like a bonnet I guess, because once that was done, the little bow and button accents seemed all they needed.

 
Except this little brown one that absolutely HAD to have a safety pin on it.  :o)

 
The little blue cushie below was the first prototype and it's a bit smaller than the others.  I also thought the little stand piece on the back of the frame needed to come off at first, but the more I made, I liked the idea of them standing up.  I cut a piece of black cardstock with my 2 1/2" circle punch to cover the holes where I pulled off the stand.  It looked nice and clean after that.

 
Here's a close up of the chairs.  My neighbor that I am doing the craft show with said she saw some little chairs at the fabric store for sale for $10.  I told her I had a few Adirondack chairs I hadn't used and asked her how they were made.  She said they just had a cushion/pillow type piece and it wasn't even glued on.  I made a square 'pod' of walnut shells and a pillow cover and just put in a touch of stuffing.  There wasn't much room in that little pillow! 
 
 
I need to get a few more make-up bags done.  I checked my stash last night and I guess I sold more than I thought!  Luckily, I have about 6 in the halfway stage so I should be able to finish them up in the next couple of nights.  Man....if only I didn't have to work during the day!!!  ;o)

1 comment:

The Other Barb said...

You have been busy! How cute!!