Summer Garden Pincushion - Join The Fun

I've been wanting to make one of those pincushions that are segmented into six parts with a button in the middle.  You know.  A pincushion!  I don't know what they call them except for that.  But anyway, I think they're cute and was looking around for instructions on how to make one out of pretty fabric.

Imagine my complete joy when I saw that Jill from the blog Fiberlicious was starting a tutorial on how to make one!  And it gets better!  She's going to teach us how to embroider the sweetest flowers on each section!  It's called the Summer Garden Pincushion and you can find her first post in the tutorial here.  Or just go up to the right sidebar on my blog and click the little button for the Summer Garden Pincushion Tutorial.  See?  I've made it easy and convenient for you.

I love how Jill has made this a true step-by-step process.  Part one of the tutorial lists all of the items you'll need to make this pincushion.  As a stitcher, I already had a lot of the items in the craftroom.  She also explains the process of tracing the pattern onto your fabric.  When I printed her pattern, it printed smaller than it was supposed to, so I took Jill's advice and drafted my own pattern.  I got all old-school and used a protractor and compass.  And guess what -- it was kind of fun!

In step 2, Jill showed us how to embroider our first flower, lavender.  She includes a downloadable pattern sheet for the flower and complete stitching instructions.  I didn't use this, depending instead on my considerable (ahem) "artistic" abilities to draw my own.  It wasn't bad, but I really need to get some different kinds of erasable pens/markers for this step.  My water-erasable one writes very thick lines and it made a difference.

The top part of the pincushion with dividing lines drawn on.

I spent part of yesterday afternoon happily embroidering my lavender flowers.  As someone who has been doing cross stitch for a long time, I'd forgotten how much fun it was to embroider.  It was like painting with floss and I enjoyed the free form flow of the stitches.  I might have gotten carried away because my flowers are huge, but I am still pretty pleased with the result.

If you'd like to join the fun of making this lovely pincushion,  go ahead and read about it on Fiberlicious.  We're only at part 2, so you have plenty of time to gather your supplies, get your fabric ready and stitch your first bunch of pretty flowers.  Just take a look at her completed pincushion and you'll want one for yourself!