Embroidered Pincushions
Posted on January 18 2023
One of the things I love most about designing a fabric collection is figuring out all of the things I can make with it! My new collection, Hothouse, has SO many possibilities!
Quilts are a given, but I love small projects as well. Here are 2 types of pincushions I made. One uses Hothouse fabric directly and the other is influenced by the motifs in Hothouse. I love translating designs from one material to another!
First up are Embroidered Pincushions on Hothouse fabric:
Hothouse has a lovely blender fabric, Cold Frame, in 6 different colors. Blenders are usually used in quilts to visually connect other, more dramatic prints. Here, I used Cold Frame as an embroidery background. Cold Frame in Snowy Day and Sunshiny made perfect backgrounds for brightly colored stitching. I filled in areas with stem stitches, satin stitch, outlined areas in stem stitch and backstitch, and emphasized spots with French knots. (I recommend Sue Spargo's book Creative Stitching.) You can use all kinds of stitches to make a type of sampler. And make your pincushions any size you like!
Next are Embroidered Wool Pincushions using Hothouse motifs:
Felted wool fabric is wonderful to work with; I use it for the inserts in most of my ceramic pincushions. Here, I made 3 different wool pincushions using the motifs from Hothouse.
For the round pincushion I interpreted the motif in Seed Library. I even made a magnetic needle minder button for the center that I covered in Seed Library fabric.
When I sewed the magnetic button on, I used a 2-hole button on the underside to snug everything together.
The rounded rectangle uses shapes from the Wonder Garden print. This one was great for trying out different outline stitches.
The long rectangle started as one big rectangle. I used a variety of stitches on top of the rick rack (see Boundless Binding for that motif).
Then I folded the edges around to the back when I sewed it together, so that the seam would be on the underside of the pincushion. 
Find other tutorials using Hothouse HERE and HERE!
