Pincushion Tutorial...garden chair

Last month I made up a batch of pincushions to give away to some of my BFF's on retreat....

I thought I would show you how I did it....

Do you want to know how?....

This is how the chairs looked when I bought them. I got them at Roberts Crafts and they were meant to be candle holders.....which I thought was a great idea.

Can't you just see them all lit up on my backyard patio during a summer evening BBQ?

But when I saw them...I immediately thought that they would also make adorable pincushions.

I removed the votive cups and chose fabric to match each chair. I cut circles about 6 - 7 inches around.....

....and gathered the edges by hand using a running stitch.

I put some fiberfil inside the circle.....I used enough to make it firm enough for the pins but not so much that when I sewed the button in the center that it wouldn't "squish down".

I gathered the circle tighter....

...and then knotted it off several times.

I used hot glue and dabbed a little on each knot so that they would be secure and the circle would not come ungathered after lots of use or pressure from pins and such.

Next I hot glued some ric-rac around the edge of each circle.

While the ric-rac cooled....I stitched a button in the center of each circle using 2 strands of thread and a long needle.

I made several stitches to secure the button.

I pulled the thread tightly so that the circle would squish down and flatten the top.

I placed glue around the inside edges of the ric-rac and chair.... and quickly put the flattened circle on the glue....applying even pressure with my finger until the glue cooled.

And my batch of pincushions were complete!....I just needed to add pins!

They were fun and very easy to make.

I love the way that they look all set up....maybe ready for a backyard fireworks display on the 4th of July!

Or a summertime concert....you decide!
Have a quilty kind of day…
xx
Lori