“Plethora of Pincushions. Our first-ever pincushion sale to benefit SDA. We’re asking you to donate wild, wacky, wonderful handmade or vintage pincushions to offer for sale in the SDA Bookstore. Compete for the soon-to-be-coveted Pincushion Prize—a $100 gift certificate accepted at any SDA vendor.”

Sounded like a project I could tackle. I looked online for some design ideas and formulated a plan. I found an interesting shape to work with and cut some scrap fabric to test the pattern. I liked the result. Then I decided to create an interesting fabric for my pincushion. I chose to use wool and I wanted to alter it with my embellishing machine. What’s that? Oh, a little something I bought a year or two ago, and this seemed the perfect excuse to take it out of the box. I did that, and I started to play. I used beautiful houndstooth wool pant legs and scraps of lovely hand dyed wool fabric. I put them together to create a unique fabric. After a bit of trial and error, I made my first pincushion. It’s less than perfect, but totally satisfactory as a prototype.

Since this was really just a test model, I quickly made a second one. I learned a few things on the first one – this one went together more easily and I’m delighted with the result.

I almost forgot to tell you about the filling for the pincushion. Research revealed that crushed walnut shells are recommended  for filling. These are available  in small bags at sewing shops, or in larger bags at pet stores. Guess which one I picked?

Kush was delighted with my choice. When I get tired of making pincushions, she might even get to try this litter.