Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Finished the First Pincushion Sample and Now Working on a Pattern

I'm not particularly happy with how I sewed this together, but it was begun with a scrap of felt and some new thread and really no thought about anything else.  I just wanted to try out some new Valdani thread and ended up with a finished project because I hate to waste anything.

The "Pins" part of the design was centered on the fabric to begin with.  When the embroidery was finished, the whole thing ended up being off-center in the back because all of that stitching was above the text.  I sewed it together in the back with a feather stitch.  There's a small vine embroidered underneath the feather stitching with silk ribbon flowers, too.

I sewed the sides together with small Czech glass flowers and Japanese seed beads.  Not really crazy about that either.  I would have liked the sides to be cleaner, but it's hard to stitch and turn a seam in felt and not mess up the silk ribbon embroidery.

I'm working on a new pattern now that will include both the rectangular pincushion and a round one.  Still working out the kinks in it.

In the rose-colored round sample, I'm using Robyn Alexander's hand dyed wool felt with matching silk ribbons and silk threads.  It's embellished with Czech pressed glass flowers and leaves and size 15 Japanese seed beads, too.

I plan on sewing this one together with the three-bead picot edge that I learned from Nancy Eha many years ago.  I used this same finish in my Here's My Heart Scissors Sheath.  I'll have to add some of those beads to the embroidery for some continuity to the look.

Here's where some more planning would have helped.  You would have thought that I learned my lesson with the purple pincushion.  The three-bead edge needs to be worked with round seed beads (usually Czech), not the really tubular ones that are great for bead weaving (usually Japanese).  And, I need size 8 because of the thickness of the felt.  Size 11 beads will just look too small.

Fortunately, I found some ones that might work in my stash.  I LIKE IT when I find something in the stash.  I need to pare it down anyway!