Last night our quilt guild celebrated the holidays with their annual Christmas carry-in meal and gift exchange, all socially distanced. Members were encouraged to gift a handmade pincushion and had three months to craft their gift.
I decided I wanted to make a pincushion from some of my vintage fabric stash and finally landed upon the idea of a Christmas tree pincushion. I chose some 30's fabric scraps that had either red or green in them. I used a muslin foundation topped with a piece of fusible batting. I then did a stitch and flip method of foundation piecing the scraps, adding some vintage lace and rick rack for finishing details.
Once pieced and the front and back tree shapes sewn together, the triangle shape was filled with crushed walnut shells. After sewing the bottom closed, I hot glued a vintage wooden thread spool to the bottom for the tree trunk base. A vintage button and metal bow topped the tree. I was happy with how my pincushion turned out, so much so that I almost hated to gift it!
To exchange our pincushions, we played Quilt Bingo. As someone got a 'bingo', they selected a wrapped package holding a pincushion. We played one looong game of bingo until everyone had a bingo and picked a gift. Since I was calling numbers, I took the last remaining package which happened to be from my mom. My mom made a pincushion from a vintage ceramic cat planter. Isn't it cute!! And extra special since she made it.
Are you making any special gifts for Christmas using vintage fabric or items? I would love to hear about your vintage creations!
Happy Sewing!
~Sharla
