This is a project that is long overdue for me! I’ve been working with a teeny pincushion for several years and I’ve been hankering after something more substantial for a while now. I use several different types of pins depending on the fabric I’m sewing and my teeny pumpkin cushion just wasn’t cutting the mustard anymore….they wouldn’t all fit for a start, and I’d end up trying to fish out my fine steel pins from between the big round heads of my quilting pins. Annoying!
You’ll need old jeans, rice, and ultra fine wire wool. I’d read somewhere that stuffing your pincushion with wire wool helps keep your pins sharp. The rice serves a dual purpose. It weights the pincushion down. But I was also concerned about the steel wool “rusting” over time. Rust is caused by metal + moisture. Rice absorbs moisture. So hopefully it will help keep the rust away!
Cut a rectangle twice as long as it is wide. Mine was 14″ x 7″. Cut a strip of fabric 1″ x 7″ for the tab. I zig zagged the edges of my tab strip to prevent fraying. Fray check or clear nail polish would also do. I didn’t want to rouleau it as I wanted a kind of scrappy denim effect but you could, if you wanted a cleaner finish…
Fold the tab strip end to end and stitch at a 45 degree angle to one corner or your rectangle…
Fold in half and stitch as shown. Along the top edge, then down the side, leaving about 3″ in the middle of that side seam for turning. Leave the bottom edge open. (Folded edge is on the right. I triple stitched all seams for strength). Trim all edges. Clip corners.
Now with that open bottom edge…close and stitch it so the bottom seam is at a 90 degree angle to the top edge (this creates the pyramid. You see what was the side seam with the opening, is now in the centre of the bottom edge)…
Turn through to the right side. Pyramid!
Put a generous amount of rice in for weight (I used half a cereal bowl for mine)
Then stuff with the finest grade wire wool you can get. Don’t get the coarse stuff…it’ll just make it lumpy! If it does get a bit lumpy, us a little wadding around the inside. Slip stitch the opening closed once it’s plump enough. (It needs to be pretty solid)
And there you go! Giant pyramid pincushion. Those yellow pins are quilting ones. Then I have glass headed standard pins and fine steel ones. Because my pyramid has 3 sides, (excluding the base. Obvs we all know a pyramid has 4 sides!) each type of pin has it’s own little place. So not only is there now room for them all, I don’t get them mixed up. One less thing to bug me!
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