It will give you a pretty spot for your pins, and it has a place to store your sewing needles so they don’t end up buried somewhere deep in the carpet (ahem … like in my studio). The pincushion is stuffed with fiberfill and has a little sandbag inside to weight it.
This is a great project for using up some of your small scraps. I hope you’ll get creative and make it a home of your own!
For general instructions on free-motion quilting, see Keeping It Real: Free-Motion Quilting and Fabric Collage (page 63).
* At least 9 contrasting fabric scraps 5” square or larger for the cabin walls, roof, windows, doors, tree, and needle book*
* A scrap of wool felt 4” square or larger for the needle book
* A scrap of muslin 3½” × 7” or larger for the sandbag
* 1 fat quarter of woven cotton fusible interfacing
* Polyester fiberfill
* Button for the needle book
* Sand or lizard litter to fill a 3” square flat sandbag
* Appliqué glue
* Thread to contrast with the color of the doors and windows and with the cabin front
*The windows and doors should be different from the walls, and it’s nice if the roof contrasts as well.
Patterns are available to print from (http://tinyurl.com/InspiredToSew-Patterns)
Cabin front and back walls:
* Cut 2 pieces 5” × 4” each from fabric and interfacing.
Cabin side walls:
* Cut 2 pieces 3½” × 4” each from fabric and interfacing.
Roof front and back:
* Cut 2 pieces 5” × 3” each from fabric and interfacing.
Roof sides:
* Cut 2 pattern A pieces each from fabric and interfacing.
Cabin bottom:
* Cut 1 piece 5” × 3½” each from fabric and interfacing.
Door appliqué:
* Cut 1 piece 1” × 2” from fabric.
Window appliqués:
* Cut 10 squares 1” × 1”.
Tree appliqué:
* Cut 1 pattern B piece from fabric.
Needle book:
* Cut 1 piece 3½” × 2½” each from fabric and wool felt, using pinking shears to cut both at once with wrong sides together.
* Cut 1 strip 1” × 2” from fabric for button loop.
Sandbag:
* Cut 1 squares 3½” × 3½” from muslin.
To prevent fraying and stabilize the fabric for quilting, press the interfacing pieces to the wrong sides of the wall, roof, and bottom pieces before you start sewing.
note: Position the front and back panels with the 5” edges at the top and bottom.
1. Referring to the photo, use appliqué glue to adhere the windows and doors to the front panel.
2. Using your free-motion quilting foot and with the feed dogs down, sew on the door and windows. Using this method, you can simply doodle with your thread. Create window frame and door details, and add a scalloped edge ½” from the top for an artful roofline.
Cabin back with needle book
1. To make the button loop, press each long edge of the 1” × 2” fabric strip under ¼", then fold in half lengthwise with wrong sides together. Edgestitch the open edges together.
2. Layer the felt and cotton needle book fabrics with wrong sides together. Fold in half to form a book with the felt on the inside. Mark the center fold at the top and bottom with pins.
3. Fold the button loop in half and tack the ends together with glue. With the felt side of the book facing up, insert the loop ends between the layers in the center of the left edge. Beginning and ending at the center pin marks, topstitch around the left-hand side of the book, catching the loop ends in the stitching.
4. Fold the book in half again and center it on the cabin back. Beginning and ending at the center pins, topstitch the right-hand side of the book to the cabin back. Sew a button onto the cabin back to correspond with the loop for fastening the book closed.
Cabin sides
note: Position the cabin sides with the 3½” edges at the top and bottom.
1. For the right-hand side of the cabin (when viewed from the front), glue windows in place and freemotion quilt as you did on the cabin front.
2. For the left-hand side of the cabin, glue and then free-motion quilt the tree trunk and the windows in place. Use green thread to add a mass of stitching for tree leaves. Then free-motion stitch with contrasting thread on top.
See Sewing Basics on page 20.
Front, back, and sides
1. Mark a small dot ¼” from each corner on the wrong side of all pieces. Use these dots as starting and ending points for each of your seams, and backstitch at each end.
2. Sew the top edges of the cabin front and cabin back pieces to the bottom edges of the roof pieces. Press the seams up. Sew the front and back together at the roof and press the seam to one side.
3. Sew the top edge of each cabin side to the bottom edge of 1 roof side piece A. Press the seams down.
note: This is the opposite direction from the way you pressed the front and back seams. This is so you can easily sew the side to the front layer by nesting the seams.
4. With right sides together, align 1 side panel (cabin side and pattern A) to the front roof / wall panel that you constructed earlier. Nest the seams together. Sew the roof sides to the roof fronts and backs. Repeat for the remaining side.
5. Sew the front and back walls to the side walls. Press.
Sandbag
On such a large pincushion, you’ll need something to weight the bottom down so it won’t tilt. For this reason, I have you construct a sandbag.
1. Sew the muslin squares together, leaving a 1½” opening to fill with sand.
2. Fill with sand or lizard litter and hand stitch the opening closed.
1. Sew the bottom piece to 3 sides of the cabin, beginning and ending at the marked dots.
2. Turn the cabin right side out. Press the open bottom edges under ¼".
3. Stuff the cabin firmly with fiberfill, and when it’s nice and full, place the sandbag inside at the bottom. Before you close the seam, check to see if the house stands up straight. You will probably have to fiddle around with the placement of the sandbag to get it just right.
4. Hand stitch the opening closed using a blind stitch.