A new pincushion

The first thing my one year old does when she goes into the sewing room is head straight for my pincushion.  She loves to pull the pins out and put them back in, and it doesn’t help that I tell her “no” and try to take it away,  making it all the more desirable. 

For the past few weeks I have been organizing my sewing room and painting the walls.  It’s been a major switcheroo—moving stuff from one side and back so I can move bookcases out from the walls and get behind them.  In the process, I put the pincushion somewhere that Ronnie couldn’t find it, and I lost it for good.  Haven’t seen it in at least 2 weeks.  So, I decided to make a new one following Svetlana’s super easy tutorial at SOTAK Handmade.

It was really pretty simple and I loved how her trick using Heat n Bond Lite really kept the small squares together perfectly.  I even did a little hand stitching around the perimeter with a dark green embroidery floss I had on hand.  The fabric is mostly leftover scraps from Punctuation by American Jane.

You can see the miniscule little pin holes in the fabric because I didn’t get a chance to take a photo of it and this is what it looks like when it’s in daily use:

Thanks for such a great tutorial, Svetlana!

I have been making a dress for my daughter for Read Across America.  It is Dr. Seuss themed and here is a little sneak peek of the body of the dress.

I just finished it up completely and it’s hanging on a hanger waiting to be tried on by Bea.  I do believe it will fit just fine.  I used a directional print with words on it for the sleeves, and they are not quite right (one is turned one way, and the other is turned upside down—but when viewed from the back one is going the right way and the other is upside down, so we are going to live with it).   Otherwise, I am pretty thrilled with the results and am definitely going to learn how to use my secondhand serger before I attempt to make another one.  It would make finishing the seams so much faster.

Also, we got a new addition to our family yesterday.

Our older Siamese cat, Mickey, has been losing weight for no medical reason, but I think he’s lonely since he’s always had his brother (from the same litter) and two other cat friends, all who have passed away in the past 5 years from various ailments.  So we got him a friend and her name is Oreo.  Good thing she likes sewing!  She fits right in.