Teacup pincushion

If you follow me on Pinterest, you'll see I've been pinning teacup pincushions recently.  It's all part of my grand Christmas plan to bring a handmade touch to some of my presents, without going overboard and crafting huge amounts of items and stressing myself out.  Last year I made a skirt, a jumper, a scarf, a snood and several baby toys, with the end result being hours of frantic knitting and sewing, sweating over my needles and giving myself hand cramp.  Now, don't get me wrong, I love making things for other people.  But the problem with Christmas is you need to make so many things ALL AT ONCE.  Rather than birthdays, where it's individual items spread throughout the year.



This year I decided to keep the handmade-by-me to a minimum and instead try and buy presents from other craftspeople.  What little crafting I intend to do will be small pieces to compliment bought gifts, rather than the main present itself.



So, enter the teacup pincushion!  I'm making my Mum a sewing basket, once it's done and finished it'll be the subject of a future post but in the meantime, I was excited to share my pincushion just now!



I went through a phase of collecting blue and white china, a hobby I intend to revisit once I live in a rambling farmhouse in the country 20 years from now, but for the moment I live in a 2 bedroom tenement and so don't really have space for slightly impractical sets of teaware.  Not that I haven't used my china, over the years I've thrown several tea parties for the Royal Wedding or the Diamond Jubilee but if I'm being honest with myself, it's a big box taking up room in the cupboard that could be put to better use for the time being.  So I've decided to upcycle as much of the china as I can.



Most of it was acquired from auctions or charity shops and none of it was expensive, I have in mind this little guy cost me around £1.49. The beads, material and stuffing were from my stash so this is a proper thrifty project.  I googled several tutorials for teacup pincushions before starting and took the basic concepts on board to make my own.  This was attempt 2, attempt 1 ended up in the bin after trying unsuccessfully to glue the pearls around the edge.  The glue went everywhere, including my table and fingers and just looked awful.  The second attempt I glued in the cushion but sewed on the pearls, which looks much nicer.  I'm debating whether or not to glue the cup to the saucer or whether it will be more flexible to be able to separate them as needed.  I could see Mum using the saucer for thimbles and chalk so I might just leave them unattached.  I want to make one for myself now!

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