I was determined to get this pincushion finished this week. As I explained last week, I haven’t been enjoying doing this one (not the fault of the project itself – the lovely pincushion design is from Carolyn Pearce’s ‘Home Sweet Home Workbox’ book) – but more to do with how I was feeling about it.
So, this is the back of the pincushion, showing how I tied the strong green thread around the pincushion, pulling it tight and fastening a tiny button in the centre. I wasn’t quite happy with the squiffy shape of the pincushion at this stage – a bit lop-sided, and not very round.
At the point when this photo was taken, I had just started to work the beaded hedebo edging around the pincushion.
This is a lovely stitch, but takes a bit of planning. You need to make a foundation row of cross stitches – one short, one long, one short, etc – along the length of one section of the pincushion, across the seamline. First, you stitch all the ‘bottom left to top right’ slanting stitches.
Then you go back along the section, stitching the ‘bottom right to top left’ stitches. It looks very messy at this point, but these stitches will all be covered later.
Then, with the same length of thread, you attach a green seed bead on top of the first, small, cross stitch, anchoring it in place by going through the bead twice, and making a small stitch neatly in the fabric.
Over the long cross stitch alongside it, you work a row of buttonhole stitches, without piercing the fabric itself, so that you create a lacy-looking edging. When you have tightly filled the long cross stitch, you attach another bead over the short cross stitch….and so on all around the edge of the pincushion. It’s actually easier to do than it is to describe! Carolyn’s book has very detailed instructions with photos at the back of her book. And her photos aren’t out of focus 🙂
So, this is the finished pincushion, which I like a lot more, now that it’s finished! Cute, isn’t it?
I think that the next ‘small’ for the workbox that I’ll make will be the spool holder, with the oranges on it and the wildflower border around the sides.
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Janet Granger's Blog 
That sounds an awful lot of work Janet, but well worth it because it’s beautiful.
I think it took longer to write the blog post than to stitch the edging, actually! Maybe a couple of hours altogether?
It is a very sweet pincushion and it looks lovely. I wonder how I will cope with attaching the button and creating the shape.
I have copied your entries in colour today, and saw that your tracing is much clearer than mine. I too used a sharp pencil. What pencil exactly did you use?
I can’t find any instructions in the book for placing the tape-measure inside the cover. Am I missing it, or do you know where I can find some instructions elsewhere? Also, what type of tape-measure does one buy? I wonder if you could help with these questions.
The kind of pencil I use is a ‘mechanical’ pencil (one of those plastic-stemmed ones where you twist the lead up the centre, so you always get a really sharp point). Been using them for years, and they’re great.They’re not especially for needlework, just an HB lead pencil. I haven’t got as far as doing the tape measure cover yet, so I haven’t looked at the instructions, but I’ve bought a tape measure to use – just a simple cheap one about 2 inches diameter, with a button in the centre to rewind the tape. I think you’d just stitch the two round sides of the cover to the long strip that goes around the sides, without forgetting to slip the tape measure inside just before you stitch the last bit!
Lovely, sweet little pincushion. It will be a delight to have such pretty accessories in the beautiful workbox.
I do think that is pretty and well made