The Adventures of Making: a prickly situation: a pin-cactus made from scraps.

Hey! did you know....? Tomorrow I'll be celebrating the fact that I'm turning 27! Nope, no april's fools to be found here! I'm not sure if I'm quite ready for it. Not that I mind getting older, as I think that aging just means that you have added a few chapters to the story of your life. And whatever is written in those stories -the bad and the good-, it is part of who you are and therefore aging should be something to be proud of.

But last year has turned out to be quite a rollercoaster, with subsequent high's and lows. I feel like a completely different person than the Marije from one year ago, who was celebrating her 26'th birthday in her old apartment, oblivious to what the year might bring.

But ofcourse besides reflection, a birthday mainly is a cause for celebration. And what better way to celebrate than with a little refashion? So, I made myself a little gift: a pin cushion made from scraps!

you'll need:

a small piece of strong and thick scrap fabric, around 25x10 cm
some shredded scrap fabric to use for stuffing
a small piece of carton
a magnet
some glue
a little pot

level: Easy!!

Check out this lil' piece of fabric. it's a scrap of fabric from one of Joost's old hoodies. The hoodie itself was used as as an organ donor to patch up several items, and this small piece was a leftover. The funky print reminded me of something.. flora!
So... naturally I was inspired to make a little cactus (pins, cactus... get it? of course you do, you clever you ;) )

A small piece of fabric.

I folded the fabric, and traced the outline of a cactus on the back side of the fabric.
As you can see, I just did some free-drawing, it's a simple shape!

I simple sewed the lines, although it's not very visible on the picture...
Then, instead of cutting the excess fabric of, I decided to cut the fabric into small strips, so that they would become part of the stuffing of the cactus. I'm going no-waste here!

I'm not sure if the shredding bit makes completely sense to you, but maybe it does when you see it turned it right-side out again:

see? The cactus already has some build-in stuffing! Neat!

But of course, if I wanted to use it as a pin-cushion I would need a lot more stuffing. Luckily, I had just a thing for it: My jar-o-scraps!
Whenever I'm sewing something, I don't throw away the little pieces that are too small to use for sewing, I simply shred them and put them in my scrap-jar. Whenever I need some stuffing, I just grab my jar!

my jar-o-scraps! I recommend you start one for yourself: it saves waste,
and you'll always have some stuffing at hand if you need some.

When I has sufficiently stuffed my cactus, I folded the bottom as if it was a present and sewed it together.

So, that's mainly the sewing part! Let's get to the rest, shall we?

I ran to the shed, and grabbed one small plant pot that I used for seed-starting. Fortunately, I don't need them anymore after Broen's ingenious craft :)

a lil' pot!

Next, I cut a round piece of carton that fitted about halfway the little pot.
Then I cut a piece of stretchy fabric that was a little bit bigger. With some needles and some glue, I covered the carton in the fabric. As you'll see in the following picture, It doesn't really matter if a small part is still uncovered.

Now, here comes the ingenious part! When I'm sewing, things quite often get messy; with pins and needles all over the place. Of course, you can go crawling over the floor to pick them all up, but it much easier to use a magnet! Simply hover a bit over the floor and table and tadaa! you're done.

A magnet!!! I simply glued it into place.

with some handstitching, I sewed the carton and cactus together, the magnet should be facing down.

The last thing I did was covering the little hole on the bottom of the pot with some fabric. Then, I simply pushed the cactus in the pot, where the little carton acts as a lid.

Aaaand I'm done!