Drawstring Bags and Pincushions

In my local modern quilt guide, the Greenville Modern Quilt Guide, we recently held elections and voted in a new president.  I was the president for the last two years and was the vice-president for two years before that. We are a new guide so we did not have much money to bring in speakers and therefore relied on our own members for our content.

I am in awe of the talent that we have in our group and so grateful for them to have shared their talents and their time for our guide.  I made each member that contributed to the group that held a chair position and/or presented a presentation, tutorial, or workshop.

I shared four mini quilts that I gifted last week and today I would like share some drawstring bags and pincushions I made for some members.

For the drawstring bags, I used Jeni Baker from In Color Order's Lined Drawstring Bag Tutorial and customized each bag for the recipient.

Drawstring Bag 1 - For our incoming president who taught a quilting workshop and presented a trunk show (and who I know loves this blue print by Rifle & Co. for Cotton & Steel).

 Drawstring Bag 2 - For our treasurer who also organized and hosted the guild challenge, a Cotton & Steel version.  The yellow fabric is a Japanese print that is all about handwriting to go along with the theme of her guild challenge piece.

  Drawstring Bag 3 - For one of our board members who lead the creation of the by-laws and co-organized our one year anniversary pattern, a Kaffe Fassett bag.  

All of the bags together.

I also made 4 pincushions for other members who have contributed to the guild.  Since I stopped selling pincushions in my Etsy shop I have actually missed making them so these were fun to sew up.

Pincushion 1 - For a quilter who shared a trunk show

Pincushion 2 - For one of our Charity Chairs

Pincushion 3 - For our QuiltCon Charity Quilt Chair

Pincushion 4 - For a quilter who shared a trunk show

I hope you enjoyed seeing these little gifts!  Have a wonderful weekend!

I am linking up to Link a Finish Friday, Whoop Whoop Friday, Thank Goodness Its Finished Friday, Finish It Up Friday, Fabric Frenzy Friday, and Show Off Saturday @ Sew Can She.

Custom Sewing Set - WIP Wednesday November 6, 2013

As some of you may know, I have an etsy shop where I sell my quilt patterns and sewing accessories.  Over the weekend I was approached to make a custom combined cathedral window pincushion and thread catcher.  I love the chance to design and figure out new things so I readily agreed. 

 

 Here is picture of the pincushion and thread catcher the buyer wanted me to base the combined version on:

I thought that I would share my process and some of my learning's.  I knew that in making the combined design:

     1. I needed to make the pincushion as heavy as possible to hold the fabric basket.  I usually use about half crushed walnut shells and half stuffing.  I changed the filling to almost all crushed walnuts.

     2.  I wanted the set to be separable so that the pincushion and thread catcher could be used together or separately.

     3.  I needed to make the fabric basket a different dimension.

I first used pins, fabric, a cathedral window pincushion, and a fabric basket to mock up a design, don't you love the fabric combinations?  :)  My original thought was to add the connecting fabric in the seam of the pincushion.

As you can see above this was a no go because it tilted the pincushion.  From playing around the fabric strip and where I attached everything I was able to design a prototype:

I made the prototype out of some of my favorite Bella fabrics because I get to keep the prototype :) (The colors in the picture on the right are more of the true colors in the fabrics.)

So the main changes I made to the set to make it combined:

    1.  I made the pincushion much heavier.  This weight seemed like it was able to hold up the basket well.

   2.  I added tabs to the bottom of the pincushion and into the seam on the fabric basket and added a button and button hole to connect the two.  I added some interfacing to the button and button hole area of the fabric strip to give it some stiffness and strength.

   3.  I kept the width of the basket the same but made the basket deeper from 4 inches to 5.5 inches.

I am very happy with how the set turned out.  Now it is time to make the "real" set for my customer.

I was wondering everyone's opinion on pincushions and thread catchers.  I had never really thought about combining them as I move my pincushion around a lot and like my thread catcher to always sit on the table next to my sewing machine (if I move it and forget to put it back I have the bad habit of throwing the threads on the floor).  Do you like yours together or separate?  If there is interest in the combined version I might make a few more for my etsy shop for the holiday season.

Thanks!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday!