It seems that pocket pillows are becoming a favourite of mine.  So called because they are pocket sized rather than them having a pocket, although occasionally they have a pocket too.  They’re just the right size for little hands and are perfect even for pin cushions for those with grown up sized hands.

The two I’ve been working on this weekend are a boy in green and blue (I can’t remember where I got this pattern from) and the love bear from Andrea Zuill.

These are so easy to make.  All you have to do is embroider your design of choice onto your fabric of choice – my favourite is brushed cotton for softness.  Put your embroidery and backing fabric wrong sides together and draw a line round the embroidery (about 1/2″ from the sewing).  Sew round the line (I use back-stitch) leaving an opening for turning and stuffing.  Turn and stuff quite tightly, and sew up the opening with whip stitch.  I use invisible thread for this but that’s my personal choice.

For the red bear (shown below) I upcycled a dress that had a rather fetching pocket for whatever trinkets little girls like to carry around.

These are so simple to make and a really nice way to display embroidery – go on have a go, you know you want to.

These embroidered pillows are made of very soft cotton, backed with offcuts of upholstery fabric of unknown type.  They are perfect for little hands to clutch for comfort.  They could also be ornaments, displayed in a bowl or basket, or used as pin cushions.

Available in the shop

I’ve been going through some of the things that we made for the last craft fayre and came across these gorgeous felt birds that Jolene made over the space of a few days when we realised that our stock on some fronts was limited and that some of that limited stock was being snapped up in advance of the fayre.

I’ll be uploading some of the other items that we made for the craft fayre over the next few weeks, in the meantime, I’ve uploaded these ones to the shop.

We’ve I’ve been a wee bit lax putting updates on the site recently, needless to say I’ve been busy busy busy, sadly though not necessarily with the arty stuff I’d like to be doing … and, to be honest, I’m not sure you want to hear about the neighbours ‘soil pipe’ that I had to unblock so we’ll move swiftly along to the projects that are of an arty nature.

The papier mache sculptures I mentioned previously are progressing nicely although they’re clocking up a huge number of hours that I’d have never credited them with had it not become necessary to keep a time record in line with the pricing thing?!

Anyway, I currently have four projects underway, including three demonic character (small, medium, and large) and a ballerina … just for contrast!  I don’t really expect any of these to be finished in the immediate future and in light of that I’ve hijacked Jolene’s latest fabric bird to add a bit of colour to my post. 

Except it’s black and white!?

This and others available in the shop

This piece started life as a needlecase and ended up as a pincusion…the truth of the matter is that I forgot to include a seam allowance and it was then far too small to suit what I had in mind, although I’d like to have you believe the change of use was deliberate.  This is only one of many times I’ve messed up when sewing, this time it’s worked out for the best though.  Most of these mistakes end up on the fire and do a very good job of keeping us warm for microseconds.

The pincushion is in the shop now for the bargain price of $7.50, which is about £5.00 at this time.  If you don’t sew you could also use it as a shelf adornment or maybe a cushion for a very small sofa.

Is it an ornament or is it a pincushion?  Well, it could be either.  In this case it’s an ornament because the intended recipient doesn’t sew.

The pattern for this was from Little House by the Sea, who very kindly shared her pattern.  The embroidery was mostly my own creation, although the general idea was also taken from the one’s made by Little House by the Sea.  The stitches used are back stitch, running stitch, bullion stitch (which was new for me on this piece) and something that I know as lazy daisy, although I’m not at all sure that’s its correct name.