Made some tiny little pride flags for my pincushion!
I cut small strips of paper and drew stripes on them with pencil crayons, laid a piece of clear tape over them to protect them, spread glue on them, folded them around a large pin, and trimmed the ends after they dried.
I was poking around Facebook marketplace this morning, not really looking for anything in particular and I saw a brand new sewing machine for $80. Most of the machines I see on the FBM are either much lower and are obviously junk, or way more expensive (and sometimes still look like junk). I messaged the seller right away and was able to negotiate down to $70 if I grabbed it today. I'd been wanting a second machine so I wouldn't have to switch feet so much (a total vanity reason, I know).
My partner came with me just in case the whole deal was skeevy and we drove to a part of town we'd never been before. A obviously rich part of town. We weaved around a few condo communities before finding the one that I'd been messaged. We had to walk up a bit of a hill because I parked too far since I refused to park in a stranger's driveway. A pair of POC in this neighborhood seemed a little out of place with all the white joggers we had seen.
The woman who was selling the machine met us outside and invited us into her foyer which was about a 1 square foot area before a short set of stairs. We had both worn masks and I think that flustered her a bit so she went to look for one to wear while her poodle glanced at us from the top of the stairs. The poodle was wearing a cute sweater and did not bark at all to my relief since my partner is afraid of dogs.
The woman said I was free to check the sewing machine out which made me pause a bit. Did she mean I could take it upstairs and plug it in? Just look at it here? I compromised by just touching it a bit and told my partner to pay her.
"Oh so you are the bank then." She said in a displeased voice. I swear her accent was Swedish or German because she sounded like my old music teacher from Sweden. My partner thought she sounded Spanish. "A lot of people, they're asking me about this" She nodded at the machine. I wondered if she regretted taking a lower price, but figured I'd just say thank you and asked my partner to grab the machine.
In the car we tried to figure out why things were so wierd. Was it two strangers showing up with masks? Sexism because my male presenting parner had the money? Racism? Probably not, so we eventually chalked it up to her not being used to selling stuff online. She hadn't even had a marketplace rating.
This srwing machine though, it is working like a dream! But I don't think it was going so well for her considering the condition it was in. Looks like threading the machine for the first time gone horribly wrong!
I switched to a cotton thread and a new bobbin and it's doing great. Took about 10 minutes to cut away all the thread and untangle the power cord. I don't even know what happened here or why she didn't think to cut the thread away before selling it.
Re-heatable Rice Packs: low waste craft perfect for beginner sewers.
Used old scrap fabric to create shapes to pour rice into. Cut out around pattern leaving seam allowance. Sewed seams on three of four sides. Once reach four side, see two thirds of side leaving 1/3 of side open to turn inside out.
Filled shapes with rice until desired amount. I left enough room to mold my pack to my arm, shoulder, leg, etc.
Top stitched remaining open side down by hand.
Place in microwave for three minutes on 60% power with a glass of water
Craft stores are just like "can I interest you in some...objects? some items? would you like some things?" and every time I'm like Oooh I love objects and items and things!
A great projects for using up scraps! And a useful one too!
Continue reading if you'd like to know how
(how-to, long, picture-heavy, start to finish)
First things first: I got inspired by watching this tutorial and used that as my starting point.
For this particular pincushion you use a bangle as a base. I wanted to get a nice vintage-looking one but had no luck finding something I liked. So I picked up random bangle from the jewelry store I work at and decided I would completely cover it with fabric instead.
For the cover I use black cotton poplin and for the actual pincushion red velvet (Not pictured but you'll also need some stuffing!)
I started with taking my bangles' measurements, then cut out a rectangle from the cotton poplin with 1cm added to each long side and 2cm added to each short side. The long sides are folded inward once by 1cm. The short sides get folded inward by 1cm twice!
The cover is sewn together at the corners through the seam allowances only! That way it can be slipped over the bangle.
Because my seam allowances wouldn't stay flat on the inside I decided to add a felt overlay, which I simply glued on using fabric glue:
I then set it aside to dry and started working on the actual pincushion. Which is a little bit different than the approach shown in the tutorial. I cut out a rectangle double the length and width of my finished pincushion measurements and sewed it into a roll:
Then I put approx. a handful of stuffing into (approx.) the middle of the roll. Pin at the sides and hand baste together. This will be the basic shape of my pincushion:
Afterwards I sewed it onto the bangle at the sides. (I marked my preferred position with pins beforehand)
After that I trimmed the excess fabric at front and back down to approx. 2cm. They will be tucked under the bangle and sewn down with no raw edges showing:
The basting stitches -shown above- can be removed now. And unfortunately my felt lining was coming loose so I had to whipstitch it back down again. And that's it! My very own custom-made wrist pincushion! I hope it will serve me well in my future sewing projects!
I in no way claim that this is the *best* way to do it -or even a good way really, but that's how I did it and it worked for me.
.....Did I mention that I hate the new ten pictures per post only rule on tumblr?! Because I do! I either have to split up posts or have to do tutorials/how-to's with less pictures. Which SUCKS!
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